


traits that worry me

by honeyvoiced



Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: Beards (Relationships), Confused sexuality, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Graphic Violence, Horror AU, Useless Lesbians, f/f - Freeform, firby, jennifers body au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2020-09-24 10:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20357044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyvoiced/pseuds/honeyvoiced
Summary: Fallon screaming at Kirby to leave her alone through the half-broken door nearly startled her into leaving, until she heard the telltale sound of the other girl choking back sobs, followed by a trail of blood snaking along the tile from inside the stall and pooling at the redhead's feet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Amanda for beta-reading, as always! This is for Hope.

Having a one-up on Fallon Carrington was nearly impossible. No matter what, she was always one step ahead; one allowance-raise further; one life-experience more than anyone around her, including me.

Fallon had been my best friend since we were little enough to get away with still calling each other ‘best friend’, holding hands on the playground and telling our parents that we were going to be together forever while it was still _ cute, _ not a cause for a heavy sit-down discussion about the way the world worked or our widening chances of being hate-crimed for living in a less than liberal state. 

The first time that I proposed to Fallon, we were nine years old. She was beginning what would be a lengthy and torturous phase of watching artsy movies - “_ Films _ . Say _ films _ , Kirby. ‘Movies’ sounds so… pedestrian,” she used to say, and it always made me feel dumb enough to sit quietly instead of asking what _ pedestrian _ meant - so the pair of us were buried beneath a giant fur throw blanket on her living room couch.

Neither of her parents were ever around, but they were always nearby enough that my own parents were comfortable with letting me spend the night at the Carrington’s house for our recurring sleepover weekends. It was probably the lack of her parents chaperoning that had led her to rent _ Kissing Jessica Stein _ on demand. 

“Jennifer Westfeldt is _ divine _,” she’d promised me. Then, for the next hour, Fallon barely paid any attention to the movie at all, focusing instead on talking to me about our plans for the next school dance. Fallon was one of the only girls in our grade that was allowed to spend time with boys, but she still turned down every one that ever tried to ask her to the dances to spend time with me, instead. 

I paid attention, though. Fallon painted my nails and barely let me get a word in edgewise, which was probably for the best, as the too-adult-for-my-tiny-fifth-grade-brain movie in front of us flung me into a mental and emotional turmoil that left my mouth dry and my palms clammy. 

“What if we both found out that we were…” The words fell out of my mouth before I could realize that I was interrupting, but I whispered the next word as if worried that her housekeeper, all the way upstairs in the bedrooms, would hear us, “_ lesbians _?”

Fallon stopped painting and talking all at once to look at me, one eyebrow raising slowly before her lips pulled into a wry sort of look that I’d never seen before. At the time, it had almost scared me, but now, years later, it was a look I was far too familiar with. 

“What about it?” She’d asked.

“Well,” I swallowed hard - I remember thinking it felt like I was going to choke. “We could… go… together.”

“Where? _ Through life? _”

I’d started shrugging, then, and then I was so nervous that I couldn’t stop until Fallon picked up one of my hands and went back to painting my nails.

“Sure. Maybe. I’ll let you know, maybe I’ll find someone else to marry.”

I hadn’t pushed it after that, nor did I ever bring up the movie ever again. When it ended, I pretended I hadn’t even noticed until Fallon grabbed the remote to change the channel, and by the time the two of us had fallen asleep on the couch in a pile of popcorn and nail polish removing wipes, I figured it was a safe bet that she’d forgotten about it, too.

We did go to that dance together, though, and every other dance for the next three years. Semi-formal, pre-winter holidays, Sadie Hawkins - all of them. School dances were such a ridiculously big deal to me in elementary school, and I could never figure out why. It wasn’t until our first dance in ninth grade, when I was convinced that Fallon was intentionally trying to make me jealous of how much attention she was getting, that I ever went with anyone other than her. 

We’d had an argument about both wanting to go as Morticia Addams for Halloween, and Fallon hadn’t talked to me in two days before extending the olive branch and texting me to inform me that four separate boys had already asked her to the first dance, and one of them was a senior. 

I told her that it was gross that an eighteen year old wanted to take a ninth-grader to the dance, and she told me that I was jealous that I hadn’t grown boobs yet and to stop being so negative just because I was scared that I’d end up alone with ten cats. 

I asked out the boy who sat next to me in homeroom, Liam, that day, after a full morning of Fallon ignoring me, and by the time that lunch hour had rolled around, she seemed to have caved into forgiving me and picked up where we left off as if there had never been any argument in the first place.

Arguing with Fallon could be either scary or just a complete waste of time. I knew she was kidding - probably - with most of her comments, but she occasionally hit a nerve that even I couldn’t pretend to be flippant about. Ending up old and alone with ten cats because I wasn’t interested in dating an adult wasn’t one of those nerves, though. For starters, the idea of having so many pets sounded heavenly, since I’d begged my parents for a dog for over three years and ended up with an iguana (Fallon’s parents had given her a dog the very next week), and after I’d looked up the Morticia costume prices my mind had changed, anyway. 

I told her about asking Liam to the dance and asked if she’d decided which of her apparent many suitors she was going to go with, but she’d shrugged the whole conversation off in lieu of shittalking the older girls as they walked past our makeshift lunch spot on the hallway floor in front of our lockers.

By the time the bell signalled that it was time for us to return to class, Fallon had decided to dress as Wednesday Addams for Halloween - I’d be Pugsley, but, like, _ slutty _, she’d promised - and I had almost entirely forgotten about the dance.

In fact, after all of the bragging and arguing, Fallon still showed up stag - though she was surrounded by attention and affection for the entire night - and thankfully Liam was there to keep me from being too lonely at my first dance without her. 

A very pathetic and clumsy kiss later had basically, as per the laws of being fourteen years old, locked Liam and I together as _ official _, and for the first time I got to see the look on Fallon’s face as she watched me be the first to have something that she didn’t. It had been step one in getting a better grip on the rocky cliffside that was the dynamic of our friendship, and even though the confused - if not annoyed - look on her face hurt, just a little, I knew it wouldn’t be the last time I’d see it. A better person - a better friend, really - would have felt guilty.

But I was smug. Thrilled, even.

I didn’t plan to make it a habit - I could tell even then that it would be something that would make our arguments veer on the ‘scary’ side of the ‘frightening-useless’ spectrum - but it _ was _ nice, just once. 


	2. Chapter 2

Kirby stared so hard at Fallon’s locker, scratched and dented, that she hardly heard the bell ring to signal the end of the break. She didn’t want to be late - again - but she couldn’t help but step closer to the wall as the students in the hallway around her weaved through each other, hurrying off to their own classes.

The lock was broken off, but their school had always been small and quiet enough that no one usually lost any serious valuables to petty theft. 

Glancing down at her feet, Kirby found the lock in question and picked it up. The pin was bent entirely out of shape, unable to be clicked back into place. Turning it over in her fingers curiously, she felt a growing sense of unease building up in her stomach before the anxiety was replaced with a sudden, searing contraction. 

Gasping as she nearly fell into the lockers, she clutched at her stomach, nausea and cramps overwhelming her simultaneously until she had black spots clouding her vision. It hit her in waves, one after another, and she ran at the first chance she felt she had towards the girl’s change room. 

The door painfully blocked her as she shoved against it, expecting it to give way, and with a yelp of pain, she grabbed for her now bruised shoulder instead of her stomach. Straightening up and leaning to push her weight further into the door, Kirby realized that the harsh pain in her gut had vanished, taking inventory of the sudden cold sweat that had replaced it.

Fallon’s feet were visible poking out from the stall nearest to the door, and the worry that overcame the redhead completely replaced her confusion at the realization that one of the trash cans had been pushed in front of the door to block it from the inside.

“Fallon? Are you okay?”

She could feel the nausea returning, in a slow, rolling boil from the pit of her stomach, but tried to ignore it when she heard the other girl coughing.

“Babe?” She tried again, stepping closer to the stall and knocking at the door. It creaked open slightly, and she was about to reach for it when it suddenly slammed shut again, cracking off of one of the hinges and then hanging crookedly, held shut.

“JUST GET OUT!”

Her voice sounded different than Kirby had ever heard before - raw, and low, closer resembling a growl than a tone of voice.

Fallon screaming at Kirby to leave her alone through the half-broken door nearly startled her into leaving, until she heard the telltale sound of the other girl choking back sobs, followed by a thin, watery trail of blood snaking along the tile from inside the stall and pooling at the redhead’s feet.

“D’you want me to call your stepmom?” Kirby tried, stepping back from the blood a little and trying to peer into the stall through the crack provided by the busted door. “Whose… blood is this?”

“Kirby,” Fallon’s voice sounded surprisingly neutral, again. Something about it was so calming that Kirby nearly forgot her earlier concern. “I swear, I’m fine. I cut myself in chemistry and I thought I was going to faint.”

She coughed loudly, followed by the sound of her spitting, and then her feet vanished from the bottom opening of the stall. The door creaked, but was pushed further shut from the inside, and then Fallon spoke again, her voice much clearer:

“Just say that I felt sick. I’ll go to the nurse and get a pass or whatever.”

“Are you sure?” Kirby chewed on her lip, her eyes flicking downward as a handful of toilet paper appeared below the stall, Fallon’s foot shooting out and using it to mop up the blood.

“I’ll call you later. Alright?”

Kirby stared at the door for a moment before turning on her heel and wandering back towards the door to straighten out the trash can. Wrenching the door open and facing the now empty hallway, Kirby took one last glance back as she heard the toilet flush - the blood from a moment earlier now entirely cleaned up - and then made her way outside.

* * *

**SIX WEEKS EARLIER**

“What’re you wearing today?” 

Fallon’s question came through the phone speaker in lieu of a ‘hello’ when Kirby answered, and she made her way over to her bedroom window to pull back the curtains before answering. 

She started shivering almost immediately - she’d left it open a crack the night before, and the room was even draftier now with the curtains out of the way.

It was colder than usual for September, so she shut the window and headed towards her closet, the coffee she’d retrieved from the kitchen in hand.

“I dunno. A sweater?”

Fallon sighed heavily, directly into the receiver, causing Kirby to wince as if she’d just blown in her ear in person.

“That’s so helpful, since you only own the one. Thanks.”

Despite her friend’s prickly attitude, Kirby couldn’t help but smile a tiny bit.

“Okay, easy, Lenny, you know you’re not supposed to call me before you’ve had your coffee and eaten. No need to bite my head off - friend, not food, remember?”

  
It was quiet, for a moment, followed by the sound of Fallon sipping.

“I’m working on it,” she assured her. “Wrong shark.”

“Hm?” Kirby paused with her hand on the knob of the closet door, frowning.

“Wrong shark. Lenny is from  _ Shark Tale _ ? Bruce is the reformed addict from the single-dad one,” Fallon corrected

“ _ Finding Nemo _ ,” Kirby supplied, but Fallon had already moved on.

“Now, make this easier for me.”

Pulling her closet open and staring up at the mess of crammed-together clothing falling off of its hangers before her, Kirby tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips in thought.

“It’s the second week already, Fallon. Do we really have to keep coordinating? We only have one class together.”

“Yes!” Fallon’s voice came through much more shrilly than before. “It’s  _ senior year, _ Kirby. You only get to do this once.”

Kirby decided not to argue any further, and instead reached into the mess of material to pull out one of the hangers.

“Maybe the purple one. With the roses on the back?”

It was quiet again. Kirby held her breath in anticipation.

“It’s sort of cold out to have your tits all over the place, isn’t it?”

Huffing out a single breath of a laugh, Kirby shook her head and tossed the sweater back into the chaos, reaching for another one, instead.

“Y’know, I think I’m just gonna wear my gym hoodie. I think ‘cozy’ is the vibe for today.”

Fallon was  _ audibly _ smiling when she replied, “Good idea. Me too, maybe.”

“ _ Liam’s here! _ ” 

Kirby’s father’s voice interrupted the girls’ conversation, and she lowered her phone and covered the speaker with one hand before calling back down to him.

“Be right down, I’m talking to Fallon!” She brought the phone up to her ear again, “I have to g-”

“I heard,” Fallon groaned. “Try not to get hit by a car sucking face while crossing the street!”

She hung up before Kirby could respond.

Dressing as quickly as she could without mussing up her already finished hair and makeup - and without spilling the rest of her coffee - Kirby hurried downstairs to the foyer where Liam was waiting alone.

“Your dad had to get to work,” he explained as she drew closer, taking her hand as she stepped into her worn boots beside the door. 

Balancing her weight on him as she reached for her keys, Kirby smiled at him easily, and shrugged.

“Sounds about right.”

“This looks familiar,” Liam observed, plucking at the sleeve of her sweater - his sweater - that she’d thrown on in a hurry to finish dressing.

“It’s my favourite.” 

He caught her eye and smiled at that, kissing her briefly before reaching for the door and holding it open for her.

The crisp autumn air immediately woke her up - any residual sleepiness that she’d been hanging onto being shocked out of her at the first wave of coolness outside. She gently linked her fingers through Liam’s and squeezed his palm. He always had the softest hands, a trait that Fallon claimed was ‘boy voodoo magic’ - an ancient blessing that gave them longer, darker eyelashes, the ability to wash their faces with bars of hand soap and survive, and any other number of qualities that they neither wanted nor deserved.

Kirby rarely ever went to Liam’s house - but one of the few times that she had, his mother had demanded he fix one of her lifting acrylics for her, walking him through the steps between rambling about the incompetant nail technicians at the spa she’d been to. Figuring it had become a routine for her boyfriend, whose mother had made it clear that he was an indentured servant first, and a son second, Kirby attributed the voodoo magic to the manicure products that he kept being exposed to.

“What did Fallon want?” Liam asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence, as they fell into step together and headed down the sidewalk.

Kicking a bunch of particularly crunchy leaves from her path, Kirby shrugged and turned to smile at him a little. 

“The usual.”

“Early morning belittling and someone to listen to her complain?” Liam filled in, chuckling when Kirby rolled her eyes and elbowed him gently.

“Don’t be mean.”

“Me? Mean?” Liam feigned outrage, but couldn’t hold the faux-offended look for long before his face broke into a smile again. “Maybe you’re just too nice for your own good.”

“I can be mean!” Kirby half-laughed, half-protested.

“No.” Liam shook his head, swinging their hands slightly. “I like you better like this.”

Slowing her pace and turning to face him fully, Kirby crinkled her nose up and shook her head before leaning in to kiss him.

He smiled into it, and just as she brought her hand up to cup the side of his face, a car horn startled her into nearly biting him.

_ “VK, are you coming or what?” _

Kirby peered around Liam’s shoulder as he whipped around to the source of the voice, the two of them spotting an idling SUV in the middle of the road, a few of their classmates hanging out of the windows.

“You can get a ride, if you want,” Kirby assured him, but he cut her off and waved the vehicle away instead.

“I’m busy. We always walk together.”

The pair of them watched the SUV speed away down the otherwise quiet residential road, and Liam took her hand once more.

“Besides,” he continued, as the two of them started to walk again, “If I started getting a ride with  _ my _ friends,  _ you’d _ have to get a ride with Fallon. And then I’d probably never see you again.”

“I have other friends!” Kirby replied indignantly.

Grinning at her, Liam dropped her hand to slip his arm around her waist, instead. 

“Then I guess I’d better lock down homecoming before you get a better offer.”

Giggling before she could help herself, Kirby looked over at him, but he wasn’t facing her.

“That’s the least romantic way you could have possibly asked.”

“What,” Liam huffed playfully, pulling his arm free as they approached the front lawn of the school. “Should I get down on one knee? Start a flash mob? I can probably do that if you give me until Friday.”

“You’re embarrassing me.”

“I would never.” Liam held a hand to his heart and laughed, taking her hand again to lead them across the grass towards the front doors. 

Fallon nearly materialized, taking Kirby’s other hand from the opposite side. It was less a gesture of affection and more one of possession, though, as the brunette turned to face them both and tugged on Kirby’s arm less than gently.

“Easy-” she protested, ignoring Liam’s exasperated sigh as Fallon backed herself into Kirby’s locker and leaned against it, smirking at the pair of them with one eyebrow raised.

“What, we can’t share?”

“My girlfriend?” Liam clarified, before shaking his head. “No.”

Fallon pouted dramatically, grabbing Kirby’s shoulder and pulling her closer to herself.

“ _ My _ best friend,” she corrected Liam, none-too-gently pulling at the cheap metal chain around Kirby’s neck holding her half of their friendship necklace. 

“Only one of us is temporary, Liam.” Fallon’s voice was nearly a purr, but the glint in her eye was bordering on wicked. “I was here first and I’ll be here when you’re gone.”

Too used to her consistent attempts to rile him up, Liam rolled his eyes and then leaned closer to Kirby.

“Talk about homecoming on the walk home?”

She nodded, smiling, and then leaned in to kiss him goodbye. Fallon scoffed beside her, yanking her own locker open and nearly hitting them both with the door of it in the process. 

“ _ BYE _ , Liam!” Fallon insisted loudly, causing Kirby to snort as he flipped her off and headed down the hallway to his own locker. 

“You could be nicer to him,” Kirby suggested, turning her attention fully to her friend once Liam was out of earshot.

Fallon shrugged, rolling her eyes.

“He knows I’m kidding. Cute sweater.”

Kirby glanced down at herself before finally taking in Fallon’s outfit for the first time. She’d clearly taken ‘cozy’ to mean something slightly different than Kirby had, her high-waisted jeans still leaving entirely too much skin on display to not be dress-coded due to the crop top she’d paired them with. Her sweater hung loosely from her shoulders, low enough to reveal cleavage, but high enough not to freeze half to death in the autumn air outside. 

It had always been a very  _ Fallon _ trait to outdress everyone around her, though. There was an art to it - making it look effortless and unintentional while still always being the most put-together person in a room.

“I have news,” Fallon announced.

Kirby opened her locker and paused, closing the door slightly to see the brunette staring at her expectantly.

“I’m listening.”

“We’re going to the carnival this weekend.”

Sighing, Kirby raised one eyebrow and crossed her arms across her chest.

“You said carnivals were for losers and their white-trash parents.”

Fallon waved a hand dismissively.

“Whatever.  _ Redsnake _ is playing at the twenty-one-plus stage and I know the guy who’s working the gate. You’re coming.”

“What’s a  _ Redsnake _ ?”

“You haven’t -  _ What _ !” Fallon feigned shock, and Kirby resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The act was old - Fallon knew everything before she did, Kirby was always late, Kirby was out of touch, blah blah blah.

“No, Fallon,” she sighed slowly, “I haven’t heard of them. Please, indulge me.”

Her voice was deadpan but it did nothing to deter Fallon from beginning an excited, almost manic rant. Pulling out her phone, she swiped through videos and photos with the other girl, explaining the entire story from the beginning about how she’d spammed the lead singer’s Instagram with comments until he’d followed her back, and then  _ expertly  _ posted a series of thirst-trap selfies until he’d started to ‘like’ them.

“So you need me to come to a concert with you so that I can be your wingman?” Kirby clarified, reaching into her locker after tearing her eyes away from the screen and grabbing her math textbook.

Fallon shrugged.

“The drummer is cute.”

“I have a boyfriend, remember?” Kirby laughed, glancing over her shoulder at the other girl and then grinning in spite of her earlier annoyance. 

“You have a week to clear your schedule. We’ll go Saturday night.” Fallon reached over as she spoke, gently tugging Liam’s sweater from Kirby’s shoulder until it slouched down, standing back and giving her an approving once-over before shutting her own locker.

“Fine,” Kirby hummed.

“Love you,” Fallon chirped, spinning on her heel.

“Love you too, or I wouldn’t be doing this!” Kirby answered, but by the time she looked up, the other girl was already gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Kirby didn’t mind math class. 

Having it for her first class of the day sometimes made it difficult to concentrate on sleepy Monday mornings, but it  _ was _ one of her only headphone-permitted classes of the day, and being able to zone out to her music while working through the logical - if not a little repetitive - formulas and equations in front of her usually had her feeling focused and alert by the end of the period.

It had been a relief to finally not be in Fallon’s class for math. As nice as it was to have classes with her best friend, especially during their senior year, sitting next to the class - if not grade - star always made Kirby feel inadequate. It wasn’t that she was jealous, or that she resented Fallon for being nothing short of a genius when it came to numbers, but it did make it difficult for her to celebrate her own B+ on a handed-back quiz when the other girl’s average for the semester never dropped below an A.

It also gave Kirby ample opportunity to see her other friends.

She had never had very many girl friends growing up, save for a few of Fallon’s that she’d sort of latched onto throughout the years, but she found it easy to make friends when she was given the chance. That was what had led her to have a foot in the doorway of every clique - something that Fallon lacked the tact for - and simultaneously ending up with mostly boy friends. 

She always considered herself lucky that Liam wasn’t usually the jealous type. He was never cruel or possessive with her despite her ditching him over lunch breaks to help a friend study or having inside jokes with people that had never said more than two words to her boyfriend.

So tuned in to her throwback playlist, Kirby barely heard the dismissal bell ring and only noticed that the period had ended when everyone around her began to pack up and leave. Rushing to keep up, she found Liam already waiting for her outside of the classroom door to walk her to their shared chemistry class.

“So, Saturday,” he barely greeted her, falling into step with her as they headed towards the stairwell, “I was thinking… takeout, at yours? I’ll have the car for the weekend and your dad mentioned that he’d be away on his way out this morning.”

Kirby smiled, picturing a weekend in with her suspiciously patient boyfriend, greasy food, and maybe a few romantic comedies, before remembering her promise to Fallon and groaning softly.

“I can’t. I told Fallon I’d be her wingman.”

“I thought Fallon got you on Sundays.” Liam’s voice was laced with disappointment, but he still smiled when she looked at him.

“To be honest, I’d rather stay in with you,” Kirby admitted.

“So why don’t you blow off whatever she’s dragging you to, and we can -”

“ _ Kirby, wait up! _ ”

She and Liam both stopped in their tracks and whirled around to the sight of Michael Culhane jogging down the hall towards them. 

Already rolling his eyes, Liam dropped her hand and stuffed his own hands into his pockets, trying to avoid looking  _ up _ at the other boy when he slowed to a stop in front of them.

“We still on for Sunday?” 

“Oh!” Kirby lit up, for a moment, then remembered Liam and sighed. “I - yeah, maybe we could push it to the morning, though? I sort of double-booked.”

Glancing at her boyfriend to explain further, Kirby gestured weakly at Culhane and shrugged.

“I promised I’d help him study. We haven’t had a pop quiz in like, a month, I can feel it coming like a thunderstorm, or y’know, how dogs can sense earthquakes or whatever.”

Culhane smiled easily, stuffing his hands into his pockets and rocking on the balls of his feet. Kirby pretended not to notice the way that Liam seemed to puff up his chest, trying to make sure he was standing at his full height to match the other boy that seemed to loom over them.

“Just call me, I’m sure it’ll be fine.” 

Someone called to him from down the hall, and his attention darted from Kirby’s face to the space over her shoulder.

“I’ve gotta run. Thanks again, Kirby.”

She barely had time to turn to Liam again before he complained.

“I don’t like that guy.”

Laughing out loud, Kirby pulled Liam closer and shook her head.

“Well, you’d better get used to him. Michael is my friend.”

“How you’re friends with the quarterback makes no sense to me, but I’ll try not to be  _ too _ jealous,” Liam promised sarcastically.

“This whole attempted-machismo thing really isn’t working for me,” Kirby hummed, pointing at him and yanking her hand back with a laugh when he lurched forward like he planned to bite her finger. “We should get to class."

* * *

The remainder of the week whipped past in a blur, leaving a flurry of orientation packages and class syllabus sheets in its wake. 

Fallon acted shocked as she replaced the varsity cheer captain who had graduated the previous summer, complaining to Kirby at every chance that she got about how busy it had made her, and how grueling the activity was  _ while she still maintained honor roll, of course,  _ and Kirby fell into her comfortable autumn routine of baking at home with her dad before homework and desperately hunting for scholarships to apply for.

Friday afternoon, while Kirby was listening to Liam regale her with stories about the creative writing class that he was growing bored of, Fallon reminded Kirby about their weekend plans. She would have known that Kirby hadn’t forgotten, but it gave her a chance to both interrupt the couple and remind Liam, again, that she was interfering with their date night. 

“I have shoes that you can borrow,” Fallon chirped instead of a regular greeting as she approached. “For tomorrow night? You should wear those jeans with the heart-shaped pockets. They make your ass look -”

Gesturing with two hands, licking her lips and winking, Fallon did a double-take at Liam as if she hadn’t noticed him standing there before.

“What’re you looking at?”

Chuckling in disbelief, Liam just shook his head and stuffed his hands into his pockets, rolling his eyes. 

Not responding was a smart choice when Fallon was in one of her particularly antagonizing-to-be-antagonizing moods. 

“Are you wearing your hair up or down?” Fallon turned her attention back to Kirby, eyes lit up excitedly.

“I don’t know yet,” Kirby admitted, shrugging as she tucked her last textbook into her locker and closed it. “Maybe up?”

Stepping closer and almost pushing Liam out of the circle, Fallon hummed thoughtfully and reached for her, causing Kirby’s breath to catch in her throat. There was something about being on the receiving end of Fallon’s compliments or occasional softness that never got old.

“You sure?” Fallon tsked quietly, pulling Kirby’s hair gently around to one side and affectionately running her fingers through the length of it, just once, before beginning to pull out the ponytail holder than kept it in place. “It looks so  _ pretty _ down. Plus, it’s sort of a special occasion, right?”

Kirby was nodding before she even realized.

“Right.” Her own voice sounded foreign to her, tinny, like she was hearing it through an old telephone. 

Fallon’s eyes flashed almost smugly before she glanced back over her shoulder at Liam.

“Right?” She repeated.

He cleared his throat, his eyes flicking from Fallon to Kirby.

“Yeah.” It was useless to fight with her.

“Then it’s settled.” Fallon dropped Kirby’s hair entirely, sliding the ponytail holder that she’d confiscated up onto her own wrist with a snap. “I’ll come by tomorrow night.  _ Be ready _ .”

Sliding past Liam and striding away down the hall, Fallon pretended to ignore the gawking from their classmates and appreciative whistling as she passed by a few of the football players that Kirby recognized as Michael’s friends. 

“Does she think that flirting with my girlfriend in front of me is going to make me jealous?”

Liam’s question brought Kirby’s attention back to him, and she laughed softly as she hiked her binder up in her arms a little further.

  
“I think she  _ knows _ that flirting with me in front of you makes you jealous.” Kirby gave him a knowing look, then linked her free arm with his and steered them both down the hallway towards the front doors.


	4. Chapter 4

Nestled comfortably against the headboard’s barrier of pillows, Liam watched Kirby so intently as she flitted around her room that she could tell that he was staring a hole through her without even having to turn to look at him. His gaze was so intense that she felt almost uncomfortable - which was rare when it was just the two of them.

“What’s wrong?” Kirby finally asked, whirling around and leaning against her dresser.

“Why would anything be wrong?” Liam asked, tucking his hands behind his head as if to show her just how _ relaxed _ and _ chill _ he really was.

“You’re staring at me.”

“Because you look really nice,” Liam explained, flashing her a grin before sitting upright and pulling his legs under himself.

“Oh, gross.” Kirby whined before turning her back to him again and digging into the dresser. “Okay, which of these?”

Facing Liam and holding up two separate shirts, Kirby waved them enticingly as if she were showing off showroom prizes on a cheesy game show. 

Pursing his lips and squinting as though deep in thought, Liam looked back and forth between the two, and then shook his head.

“Neither. What about that one with the whole… macrame sleeve-things?”

“Where’d you learn that?” Kirby laughed, tossing both shirts back into the dresser drawer haphazardly, turning to dig in her closet instead.

“Learn what?”

“_ Macrame _.”

She could hear the frown in his voice when he answered.

“You know my mom makes me watch all of those HGTV-Fashion-Police-DIY shows with her.”

“Right.” Kirby shoved some hangers aside, smiling a little when she finally found the shirt Liam had suggested. They hadn’t talked about his mom once all week - it was unusual, but it had been sort of pleasant. The less reminders about her, the better. “Is this the one you meant?”

She held the shirt up over her shoulder, still peering into the closet to decide on a pair of pants.

“That’s the one.”

Grabbing the jeans that Fallon had suggested the day before, Kirby tossed both articles onto the bed at Liam’s feet and pulled her shirt up over her head.

“So, what band is this, again?” Liam locked his eyes on Kirby’s and didn’t let them drift even an inch lower, as if hearing everything about _ Redsnake _ was his top priority.

“Some group Fallon recently hyper fixated on.” Kirby pulled on her fresh shirt and smiled a little bit, coming closer to the bed. “I guess she’s madly in love with the lead singer or something.”

“That sounds like her,” Liam hummed, reaching out and pulling Kirby down beside him with a soft bounce. “Are you sure you can’t just stay here and hang out with me? I’d even watch one of those stupid Disney movies you get all weepy over.”

Kirby laughed, pushing Liam’s chest softly.

“I do _ not _ get all -!” she didn’t finish her sentence, melting into him when he leaned over to kiss her. Her heart slammed against the inside of her ribs when his hand landed on her thigh, and just as she was about to double check that she’d shut the bedroom door, she heard the front door downstairs slam shut.

Pulling back with a groan of disappointment, Liam defeatedly put his hands up in surrender and watched as Kirby dove off of the bed to retrieve the other pair of jeans and start to change into them.

“_ Are you coming or what? _ ” Fallon barked, her voice as clear as if she’d been standing in the room beside them despite being all the way downstairs. “ _ I texted you like thirty times _.”

Glancing at her phone that she’d been ignoring in favour of getting dressed, Kirby noticed the two missed texts on the lock screen.

_ Fallon: I’m here. _

_ Fallon: HELLO?? _

“Better get a move on,” Kirby hummed, hopping into her jeans and then kicking her previous choice aside.

“I’m not in any hurry,” Liam pointed out, though he did stand up and straighten her pillow that he’d been lounging against.

“Don’t antagonize her,” Kirby chided softly, looking around for her bag before grabbing it and digging through it for some cash.

“Don’t be unfair,” Liam shot back surprisingly quickly, causing Kirby to pause in her hunt and glance up at him with her eyebrows raised.

Before she could comment, though, Fallon called for her again.

_ “Kirby, seriously, we’re going to be old enough to get in with real IDs by the time we get there!” _

Sighing and shoving a few crumpled bills into her pocket, Kirby tugged her bedroom door open and gestured for Liam to lead the way, smiling a little bit when he hesitated before heading out into the hall and making his way down the stairs. 

“Oh,” Fallon greeted him, first, glancing up and rolling her eyes as Kirby came into view behind him. “_ You’re here.” _

“Not for long, luckily for me,” Liam hummed, nearly under his breath though both girls heard it. 

“Are you sure you won’t come with?” Kirby tried one last time, reaching for his hand and trying to rearrange her features into a convincing enough pout.

“A, I don’t have tickets,” Liam reminded her, “And B, I don’t want to.”

Fallon rolled her eyes, adding, “And technically you’re only half of the vote, and I say ‘no’. We’re supposed to have a girls’ night.”

Liam looked ready to argue again, so Kirby gently squeezed his hand before dropping it. 

“Do you want us to drop you off on the way?”

“I’d feel safer walking,” Liam almost scoffed, though he softened when he turned to Kirby, leaning in and kissing her once before stepping into his shoes and opening the front door. “Call me when you get home.”

As he left, Kirby turned her attention back to Fallon and raised her eyebrows.

Sensing her disappointment, Fallon’s face fell slightly, then brightened almost theatrically as she dangled the keys in front of Kirby’s face.

“Ready?”

* * *

At eight years old, Kirby found it easy to make friends. Her teachers described her as outgoing - always willing to share whatever she was working on or make room for another in the group. Her energy, though, often noted in parent-teacher conferences, was often overshadowed by Fallon’s. Nothing to be alarmed about, the two of them were as close as close could be, but the suggestion of extracurriculars or additional social settings where Fallon couldn’t take over was always on the table. 

The issue was that Kirby didn’t _ want _ to do anything without Fallon. 

All of her excitement and social prowess seemed dimmer when she was alone. Her father tried junior sports, art classes, and even let her try out music despite the hefty instrument rental price tag - but nothing really stuck. Her focus was blurry at best when Fallon wasn’t around, and her obvious happiness when they were together made him feel almost cruel for keeping them apart. 

Something about their connection was almost divine, like a force greater than themselves had held them together since day one and refused to loosen its grip.

* * *

“You pick the music,” Fallon demanded, tossing her phone into Kirby’s lap the moment she was in the seat.

“You sure?” She asked, gingerly picking up the phone and unlocking it. 

“Yeah, I’m too amped to focus right now, anyway.”

Fallon was almost bouncing in her seat, her movements fidgety as she adjusted the mirror approximately eight times before doing up her seatbelt. 

“Should you be driving? What are you, on angel dust?” Kirby reached over and covered one of Fallon’s hands that was gripping the wheel. She could practically feel the blood under her skin, running hot.

Fallon glanced at their hands, and then at Kirby’s face before smiling a little and shaking her head.

“Like I said, just excited.”

Squeezing her hand once before letting go, Kirby focused on building a playlist for their drive, instead. They had similar enough taste in music, and Kirby scrolled through her saved playlists to find music that she hoped would keep the other girl from exploding in sheer excitement. The closer they drew to the fairground, the more jumpy Fallon seemed - shouting at cars that drove too slowly for her liking and tapping her fingers against the steering wheel impatiently every time they stopped at a light.

“He liked my tweet.”

Fallon’s voice sliced through the music, and it almost startled Kirby - she hadn’t said anything in a while. It was uncharacteristic. 

“What?”

Fallon turned the music down, before repeating, “He liked my tweet. The singer.”

“Wow, should I start shopping for a bridesmaid dress?”

“Oh, shut up.” Fallon turned to enter the parking lot, sighing as they queued up behind a long line up of other cars doing the same. “This is going to take forever.”

Kirby leaned across Fallon to peer out her side of the windshield, hoping to see around the car ahead of them. 

“I think that’s Culhane’s truck.”

“Where?” Fallon sat up a little and then rolled her window down to lean out of it.

Undoing her own seatbelt and almost crawling across the console, Kirby pointed.

“Up there, near the front.” 

Several cars ahead, the truck that Kirby recognized as Culhane’s was idling and waiting, fogging up the cold autumn air around it with thick clouds of white exhaust.

“Perfect.” Fallon grinned over at the redhead and then, with a quick check to her rearview mirror, turned her own car sharply into the emergency exit lane, and pulled them out back onto the road. Parking roadside despite Kirby’s confused protesting, she hopped out of the car. “We’re going to hop in with Culhane. You guys are friends or whatever, right?”

“I mean -” Kirby started to protest, but Fallon was already walking away without her.

“Besides,” Fallon continued, not waiting for Kirby to catch up, “he’s like… in love with me. We have Creative Writing together and he literally almost failed last semester because he wouldn’t stop staring down my shirt when we were at the same table.”

Kirby was about to point out that Culhane had almost failed Creative Writing because he’d been busy taking care of his mom and sister, too distracted for most of his schoolwork, but she figured he’d told her that in confidence and bit her tongue.

They reached his truck and Fallon tapped on his driver’s side window, beaming as he rolled it down curiously.

“Hey, d’you guys have any more spare seats?”

Michael’s eyes flicked from Fallon’s face to Kirby’s, as she popped up over her shoulder, and he smiled.

“We’ve got one, but I could get one of the guys to -”

“She can sit on my lap!” Came a muffled call from the backseat - another one of Michael’s friends. 

“In your fucking dreams,” Fallon replied, continuing to smile like she was the prize girl of a game show.

Laughter erupted from the inside of the truck, and Culhane glanced back into the back once more.

“Robbie, get in the bed.”

Groaning in annoyance, the boy that Kirby could only assume was Robbie suddenly opened the back door, nearly swinging it into her, and spilled out of the car onto the dusty ground of the parking lot entrance.

“Hurry up!” Culhane called, leaning out of the window as Robbie hopped up and dusted himself off. “The line’s moving!”

Robbie climbed messily into the truck bed as Fallon grabbed the truck door and pulled herself into the back seat, turning back to Kirby and patting the other empty seat beside herself encouragingly. 

Past the parking lot, in the distance of the fairground, lights shone through the clouds that slowly began to settle over the park. A far away roller coaster rumbled lowly under the muffled sounds of a crowd screaming, cut off by the car in line behind them honking impatiently.

“Let’s fuckin’ move, guys!” Robbie called, slapping a hand on the roof of the truck, before Kirby grabbed Fallon’s hand and pulled herself in beside her.

* * *

Staring hard at the _ Redsnake _poster hung on the bulletin board before her, Kirby’s eyes stung with frustrated tears and forced her to squeeze them shut. She could hear the sounds as if she were still there, still stumbling through the parking lot on uneven ground and shaky legs - people around her screaming, the sickening crunch of metal as cars flew from the lot in every direction, rarely making it out without an accident.

She mentally blocked it out as best she could, replacing the sounds of chaos with an equally unsettling ringing in her ears, which was in turn replaced by the very real ringing of the final dismissal bell. She didn’t even notice Liam trying to get her attention until he was at her side.

“... Kirby?”

His hand slid into her own - it was soft, and warm. He’d spent the weekend cooped up with his mother again. The gesture immediately made her comfortable, though, and she wiped at one of her eyes as she turned to face him.

Liam’s face immediately morphed from a look of confusion to concern, his other hand reaching up and cupping the side of her face.

“What is it?”

Before she could answer, he followed her previous gaze to the poster, and his look hardened.

“It’s okay,” he assured her, letting go of her hand to rip the poster from the board, instead. “Let’s… let’s go home. Is your dad home?”

His questions were soft, and gentle, but they made her feel like a crazy person. She knew that he was worried, but it didn’t stop her from feeling like she was being pitied, not empathized with. This was the sort of thing she would talk to Fallon about, if she hadn’t been so cold and distant for the last couple of days.

Fallon’s behaviour made her feel even crazier than Liam’s did. She had always been quick to bottle up her feelings, or shut people out - including Kirby - in times of emotional stress, but this was a new level entirely. She still refused to explain what had happened once they’d been separated, or even how she’d gotten to Kirby’s house afterwards on her own. It made Kirby feel more scared for her than she did for herself.

“My dad’s working,” she told Liam, squeezing his hand when he took hers once more. “Will you stay over?”

She knew he wasn’t supposed to - her father wouldn’t be pleased with the idea, and Liam’s mother would be furious - but she played into his obvious worry, giving him her best ‘sad’ look.

He hesitated before nodding once and kissing her temple.

“Whatever will make you feel better.”

“Thank you,” Kirby forced a small half smile and, with one last look at the ripped poster hanging out of the trash can, pushed the thought of Fallon from her mind and headed towards the doors.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning for a graphic depiction of a disaster scene, and _very mild_ underage drinking.

Fallon fell into step with Culhane as everyone piled out of the car. Ending up next to Robbie, Kirby tried her best to shrink into herself as he elbowed her in the side to get her attention.

“You’re still dating VK, right?”

Staring at the back of Fallon’s head, watching her laugh at whatever Culhane was saying and twirling her hair around her finger, Kirby desperately willed the conversation to end.

“Yeah.”

“Nice,” she could hear the boredom in his voice already - she wasn’t the girl he wanted to be talking to. 

Slipping away from him to catch up with Fallon, she linked their arms together - on the opposite side as Culhane - and smiled brightly at her when Fallon turned to look at her curiously. 

Smiling back, Fallon turned her attention back to the boy on her other side, leading them into the entrance to the park. Once their white all-ages wristbands were in place, the group moved to split up, with Fallon grabbing Kirby by the wrist to drag her towards the main stage area. 

Kirby couldn’t help but feel warm at the look of sheer excitement on Fallon’s face as they drew closer and closer. The ‘main stage’ wasn’t as large as its name would lead one to believe - rather, it was the only stage with actual seating, far enough from the band to leave room for people to dance. 

“Fallon Carrington, you know that wristband isn’t getting you in here.”

Fallon slowed to a stop, dropping Kirby’s arm and crossing her own. Around them, people funnelled in past them, through the security gate, flashing their 21+ wristbands as they went. 

Stood before them was Evan Tate. Muscular arms crossed over his chest and covered up the ‘SECURITY’ label on his ill-fitting uniform t-shirt. Kirby felt guilty even looking at him - his younger sister, their classmate, Trixie, had made it clear that she didn’t approve of how Fallon flirted with him whenever she was over. Kirby had defended her, at the time -  _ ‘she’s just being friendly’ -  _ but even she knew that it was a lie.

“Yeah? You gonna call the  _ real  _ cops on me?” Fallon stepped a little closer, tilting her head to the side as she eyed him. Her look somehow perfectly encapsulated both irritation and amusement, and Kirby couldn’t blame Evan for dropping his gaze from her face and clearing his throat.

“We’re not drinking,” Fallon promised, rearranging her features into a convincing pout. “I’m driving us home, anyway. My dad would literally kill me. We just wanna see the band,  _ pleeeease _ ?”

She punctuated her request by grabbing onto one of Evan’s forearms, and then paused.

“Someone’s been working out.”

Kirby watched as a blush immediately flooded the older boy’s neck and face before he gently shook his arm free and stepped aside.

“Go,” he practically hissed. “But if anyone asks, you jumped the fence. I need this job.”

“Sure, whatever.” Dropping all coy or flirty pretense, Fallon glanced back at Kirby and shot her a small, smug little smile. “Coming, babe?”

Scampering after Fallon as she began to walk away without her, Kirby shot Evan an apologetic look, but he had already gone back to checking wristbands and waving more carnival-goers through the gate. 

“God, I am  _ so  _ excited,” Fallon breathed as they drew closer and closer to the stage. 

Kirby hadn’t seen her this excited in a long time. She was almost manic, looking around wildly as if the band were just going to appear behind her, her hands shaking and fiddling with the bottom of her cropped shirt.

“Me too.” It was a lie, but Kirby wanted it to be true. Whatever Fallon was feeling was clearly a magical level of anticipation, and she wanted a piece of it.

If Fallon cared that Kirby lied, she didn’t show it. The man that Kirby recognized from the photos that Fallon had been gushing over appeared at the edge of the stage, poking his head out to squint at the growing crowd before moving to retreat backstage once more.

“That’s  _ him! _ ” Fallon squeezed Kirby’s arm, hard, causing her to wince and pull back a little.

Her small outburst had caught the singer’s attention, though, and he paused. Catching Kirby’s eye briefly, he flashed her a grin before stepping back out and setting the guitar in his hands down onto its stand near the wing.

“He’s coming over here,” Kirby pointed out, if only for her own amusement at being able to feel the girl next to her literally vibrating with excitement. 

Dropping Kirby’s arm, Fallon straightened her posture and turned to Kirby.

“How’re my tits?”

“Fine,” Kirby answered without looking. Fallon was hardly listening, anyway.

Adjusting herself as subtly as possible, Fallon turned back towards the stage just as the singer appeared before them.

He looked so much better in person - at least Kirby thought so. Men were terrible at taking photos of themselves.  _ Reverse catfishing,  _ Fallon had always called it. 

“Hey.” His voice was smooth and relaxed. 

Fallon’s shook when she replied, “Hi.”

“I think you might be the only ones here who know us,” he said, his eyes flickering between Kirby and Fallon for a moment. “Does that mean you have any requests?”

Fallon laughed, a moment too long, a little too loud. It sounded so superficial that it made Kirby’s arms break out in goosebumps.

The singer didn’t seem to mind.

“I’m sure we’re not the only ones.” Fallon flapped one hand dismissively as she talked, clearing her throat and bouncing onto the balls of her feet. 

“Well, that’s very sweet of you to say.” The man’s attention was entirely on Fallon, now, and Kirby had to resist the urge to take out her phone to entertain herself while they carried on. “I’m Nick.”

“Fallon,” she introduced herself, almost cutting him off with her speedy response. She jutted one hand out to take his, nodding in Kirby’s direction. “This is Kirby.”

“Well, please don’t let me interrupt your date night.” Nick smiled, but it wasn’t a  _ real _ smile. It set Kirby’s teeth on edge, but not nearly as much as Fallon’s next words did.

“Oh my god,  _ no _ , we’re not - we’re friends.”

Nick’s eyes flashed for a moment.

“Can I - let me get you a drink.” Clearly rushing to fix the error, Fallon lit up and crammed one hand into her pocket, clearly digging around for her cash.

“Sure,” Nick chuckled, “Surprise me.”

“Okay!” Fallon watched him walk back to the stage before turning to Kirby sharply. “Holy shit.”

“How are you planning to get drinks?” Kirby asked.

Fallon glanced back at the kiosk and then shrugged. 

“By ordering them and handing them money?” She tucked the twenty dollar bill that she’d pulled from her pocket into her cleavage, then began to work at worming the wristband off of her arm.

Watching her, exasperated, Kirby bent down to retrieve the band from where she’d dropped it and tucked it into her own pocket - she’d return it to her later as a memento - and turned back to face the stage as Fallon strutted away.

“So what’s the deal with your friend?”

Kirby nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Nick’s voice beside her. She hadn’t even realized he’d left the stage again. The scent of cigarettes and something much harder than whatever fruity cooler that Fallon would be bringing him would be practically wafted off of him.

“What?”

Nick eyed her almost suspiciously for a moment before his face broke into what Kirby assumed was meant to be a charming, easygoing grin.

“I said what’s the deal with your friend? She got a boyfriend?”

Ah, yes, a conversation that Kirby was all too familiar with.

Sighing, she watched Fallon hand over her cash and grab a few bottles from the woman behind the counter. 

“She doesn’t date, actually.”

“Me neither,” Nick joked, and Kirby had to resist the urge to visibly gag. 

“No, I mean, she’s celibate.”

“Ah,” Nick nodded slowly, taking on a very disingenuous look of sympathy. “Bad ex? Daddy issues?”

Scoffing and unable to hide her annoyance, now, Kirby shook her head and crossed her arms.

“No. She’s saving herself, I can see why.”

She gave Nick what she hoped would be a scathing once over as Fallon reappeared, holding a wine cooler out to him happily.

“Oh, thank you, darlin’.” Nick clinked his bottle against one of the remaining two in Fallon’s hand, and then took a swig. “I need to go get ready up there, so we can get started. I want to hear you screaming.”

His words sent Fallon into another fit of giggling, and with one last sarcastic wink at Kirby, he left them alone again.

“That guy is disgusting,” Kirby announced, even though he was barely out of earshot. She took one of the remaining bottles and sipped it, wincing at the sugary icy feeling on her teeth.

“What do you mean?” Fallon’s expression jumped from bright to genuinely concerned - it made Kirby’s entire chest feel warm, though, that may have been the wine cooler.

“He’s just trying to get into your pants,” Kirby replied. “You can do better.”

“Maybe,” Fallon said dismissively, turning to look at the stage again, “But I want to do  _ him _ .”

Despite her frustration and disgust, her words made Kirby laugh, and she felt her concern slide away when Fallon slipped her hand into hers and squeezed reassuringly.

The sound of an amp squealing to life and a guitar being adjusted brought Kirby’s attention to the stage again instead, and she sipped her drink one more time. 

Even though she couldn’t look at Nick without feeling white-hot anger burn against her chest, Kirby felt an excitement building up inside of her - perhaps a mass hysteria effect from Fallon - and as the band started to play, she found that she was enjoying herself. 

Fallon swayed beside her, singing the words that she knew and not seeming to catch the way Kirby couldn’t stop staring at her. She was impossible not to love when she was like this. 

Her phone vibrating in her pocket snapped her out of her trance-like state and she pulled it out to squint at the screen.

_ Culhane: I swear to god these rides get sketchier every year _

The message filled Kirby with a cloying sense of dread, and that combined with the sugar in her drink made her stomach lurch uncomfortably. Wincing and glancing around for somewhere to sit, she caught Fallon’s attention.

“Kirby? What is it?”

“I don’t - I don’t feel good. I need air.”

“We’re outside,” Fallon pointed out, though the worried look didn’t leave her face. “Are you - are you having a panic attack, or something?”

“I don’t know,” Kirby admitted honestly. “I just - I want to leave. Can we please go?”

Fallon looked back at the stage again, then set her bottle down at her feet to grab both of Kirby’s hands in her own.

“Just look at me. Take a couple of deep breaths.”

“No,” Kirby pulled back, frowning. “I want to leave. Please?”

“I - I’ll text Culhane and see if he’ll give you a ride?”

Hot, frustrated tears suddenly filled the redhead’s eyes, pushed even closer to falling by a second wave of tears - these, ones of embarrassment for the first - coming up quickly behind.

  
“Fallon, can you  _ please  _ just take me home? I feel sick and really weird and I don’t want to go by myself, and -” she could hear herself growing more and more hysterical, her words almost slurring together as they raced to get out, but before Fallon could give her an answer, the stage behind them exploded.

* * *

It was the loudest sound that Kirby had ever heard in her life, but even as soon as she heard it, she’d forgotten it, like her brain was trying to quickly regenerate and block out the trauma. 

She fell over from the sheer volume, nearly pulling Fallon to the ground beside her. Gravel prickled at the palms of her hands where she’d caught herself, and she scrambled to stand up again as what looked like a tidal wave of people ran from the source of the explosion.

Metal and charred carnival banners littered the ground around them, and it was then that Kirby saw that it wasn’t an explosion at all.

As a little girl, she’d always been outdoorsy enough. Not particularly active, but always happy to get into the mud and grass, she could put up with just about any sticky, gross things that nature had to offer - except for bugs.

She remembered chasing Fallon, once - they weren’t supposed to go into the woods past the playground of their elementary school, because the teacher supervising recess couldn’t see them through the trees, but Fallon had insisted that that was what made it better. It was a secret place to spend recess, just for the two of them.

She was better at tag than Fallon was, until they were in the woods. She later cited that it was her longer legs that made it easier to catch up to Fallon in open spaces, but she was less coordinated than the other girl, which made areas with trees and roots to trip over fall in her favour.

Fallon had gotten the lead, and, in an attempt to cut her off and trap her - to force her out onto the playground so she could win - Kirby stumbled upon the bugs. 

Later research - which was simply asking her father - taught Kirby that they were leafrollers, a harmless worm that made its home in the oak trees that so densely populated the area behind their school. Still, to walk into what was basically a minefield of hundreds, if not thousands of them, hanging by threads like the most terrifying decor imaginable, was traumatizing at such a young age. 

She hadn’t thought about them in years, though. Not until she was faced with a similar image before her. The suspended swing ride that Kirby had always chickened out on riding was lodged through the entire stage backing, having seemingly rolled crookedly on its side while crushing everything in its path. 

The remaining swings hung limp from the frame, each seat with a rider strapped in, swaying from the leftover movement of the impact. There was no way she could have heard it through the screaming of the crowd, but through a trick of her mind, Kirby’s ears filled with a soft creaking, like the sound of a swingset in a rusted, abandoned playground. 

One rider in particular screamed, kicking a seat occupied by only half of a body away from him and fighting like a trapped animal against the chains that held him in place. Flames coated the makeshift plywood floor of the stage, licking at the bodies suspended above it.

“Fallon?” Kirby scrambled to grab the other girl’s arms, pulling her hard toward herself and nearly unbalancing them both again. “Fallon, we have to go. Come on.”

Fallon stared at her, dazed, and her feet stayed planted firmly in their spot.

“You’re not listening to me! Where are your keys?” Kirby tried to keep the hysteria out of her voice, looking back in horror as the top row of stage lights popped loudly, one by one, raining glass on the people still trapped in the ride below.

Grabbing Fallon roughly and patting her down, Kirby felt the sharp prick of the keys in her pocket and nearly tore the material of her jeans to retrieve them. 

“Let’s go.” 

Fallon stumbled along behind her, never flinching or looking back at the chaos around or behind them. Kirby pulled her as close as she could while maintaining her speed, trying to avoid being trampled by other patrons escaping. 

People were screaming, punctuated by the skidding sounds of people falling on the gravel or bones cracking as the people who stumbled were trampled. Half of the people that Kirby saw resembled zombies - so covered in blood, their own or others’ - that it was impossible to tell if they were walking dead. 

She was winded as Fallon suddenly fell into her, and looking back she saw that she’d been accidentally tripped by someone falling at her feet with what Kirby could only assume was part of the ride sticking out from his shoulder.

She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut to avoid seeing anything else, but with Fallon clearly in at least somewhat of a state of shock, it was up to her to get them out safely.

The parking lot was more dangerous than the stage area had been. Where it lacked the giant fire and unpredictable stage hardware, it had a zoo of speeding cars, scraping into each other, smashing together, and even nearly running Kirby over as she dragged Fallon towards the street. 

They passed Culhane’s truck, and Kirby froze for a moment. With a massive scrape down one side from hood to bed, it had clearly been damaged during someone else’s escape, but it hadn’t been moved from its spot - Culhane was probably still inside the venue.

The dread in her stomach hit her even more fiercely than it had before the accident, but when Fallon turned to throw up on the ground beside her, she remembered that they still had a ways to go before they were safe. 

Hauling Fallon back up and ignoring the way she continued to dry-heave, Kirby screamed when a van suddenly pulled up in front of them, barely missing their legs.

Black and matte, like it had been painted by a spray-can, it rumbled to an idle and the side panel door slid open. Nick greeted them, hanging out of the door and gesturing for them to join him.

“Oh my god, you’re still okay. Quick, get in. Let’s get out of here.”

There was something so eerie about his calm, collected demeanour. He caught Kirby’s eye, and winked. Fallon heaved again, and Kirby felt sympathetic nausea building up in her own stomach. 

“Maybe clean her up, first.” 

Fallon stood up on her own and wiped messily at her jaw with the back of her arm, and barely looked back at Kirby before she took a few stumbling steps towards the van.

“Fallon,  _ no!” _ Grabbing her arm just as Nick grabbed the opposite one, Kirby gripped her tightly and felt horrified tears prickle in her eyes again.

“Hey, let me just get you out of here. She’s clearly in shock,” Nick gestured to Fallon, and Kirby felt him pull her closer towards him. “I’ll take you guys to safety.”

“Fallon, please, your car is  _ right  _ there, I can see it from here,” Kirby gestured to the exit of the lot. The horror had exhausted her, and she could hear it in the way her own voice had turned into a desperate whine.

“Kirby, it’s okay.”

Fallon finally spoke, turning to her and pulling her arm free.

Before Kirby could even properly process what was happening, Fallon was pulled into the van, and the door slammed shut behind her. 

As it peeled away from her in the opposite direction, she looked down at Fallon’s keys, clutched so hard in her first that they’d left indents in her skin, and burst into tears. Sniffling loudly, she messily wiped her eyes and looked both ways before taking off toward the car.


	6. Chapter 6

Being in Fallon’s car without her felt wrong, but it was what Kirby had to do. 

She tried to keep her ‘survival mode’ active, starting the car as she locked all of the doors, checking the back seat for anyone hiding out from the chaos, and then pulling out into the street. The traffic on the road surrounding the parking lot was terrifying, so Kirby took the first left that she could into a side street and put the vehicle in park, shutting off the lights - she’d just wait for some of the panic to die down before she put herself in any more danger. She was still new to driving, anyway, and hadn’t ever dealt with speed or congestion like this.

In the quiet dark, though, she didn’t have the distraction of survival to keep her thoughts at bay. It was hard enough to watch the cars rushing past or see people limping away from the scene before her, but when she closed her eyes, all she could picture were the images of the bodies, people trampling one another, and the vacant look on Fallon’s face as she was pulled away from her.

Sirens sounded in the distance, and Kirby felt a sort of soft numbness pass over her. Maybe she was trying to go into shock, too. She almost wished she could - Fallon hadn’t looked even half as terrified as Kirby had felt while they were running away. She wanted someone to treat her like she treated Fallon - to take her to safety and let her ignore the traumatic events going on around her.

...Except she _ hadn’t _ taken Fallon to safety. She’d let her go with those creeps, and now she didn’t know if she would ever see her again.

Hot tears sprung up into her eyes and blurred the sight of a procession of emergency vehicles rushing by her towards the carnival. Flashes of blue and red were accompanied by screaming sirens, fading off into the distance as they passed through the parking lot towards the scene. Stumbling to restart the car, Kirby froze as she watched the next procession follow - coroner vans. Almost a half a dozen of them.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there for. She needed to get home.

She took as many side streets as she could, staying well under the speed limit and ignoring the sticky, itchy feeling of her tears dried on her face. She hadn’t been hurt in the accident, but she still felt sore and exhausted. It reminded her of how she’d feel coming home in the summer after a full day of swimming in Fallon’s pool, and her dad would let her nap on the couch with the television on. Thinking about him brought on a new wave of panic, and she scrambled to keep her eyes on the road while she grabbed her phone.

It was dead, but she knew that Fallon kept a charger in the car, so she dropped her speed even further and leaned over to reach into the glove box, rooting around for the cord. Her hands were shaking as she located it and just as she looked up to make sure she hadn’t drifted too close to the shoulder of the road, she screamed.

Staggering into the middle of the road, illuminated only by the headlights of the car, was Fallon. Soaked in blood and hunched over, gripping her stomach, the brunette glanced up just as Kirby came to her senses and swerved hard, sending the car off of the shoulder and into the ditch. Slamming on the brakes and feeling the locked tires skid through the dirt, Kirby braced herself as best she could for impact as the car rolled towards a tree. It mercifully stopped just moments before she could crash, and despite being winded from the almost-accident, she realized that she was unhurt. 

She felt lightheaded and shaky, but as her heart rate calmed and she took inventory for her phone, which had fallen out of the cupholder during the commotion, she realized another feeling altogether.

Hunger.

Unhooking her seatbelt and ignoring the constant soft dinging sound from the ‘check engine’ alert that had switched on, Kirby pushed the driver’s side door open and climbed out of the car. Clutching her phone in her hand like it was her lifeline, she wandered out to where she’d seen Fallon and looked around. 

A dark pool of blood on the pavement marked where she’d stopped in front of the car, with a trail coming from the woods where she must have emerged from. The exit trail, however, was too spread out. Kirby followed the smears and droplets of blood, but they spaced out too far too quickly, like Fallon had been running. Given the state she’d been in when Kirby had seen her, it seemed unlikely. 

She wouldn’t be any help to Fallon without a phone, or without having called for help, so she paused her tracking to head back to the car and hopefully find _ some _ means of communication. Even though she wouldn’t be getting the vehicle out of the ditch, the lights were still on, which meant she could still charge her phone with the battery. 

Surveying the damage as she walked back over, Kirby sighed heavily. Fallon was going to kill her.

The thought of having to deal with her best friend yelling at her or being upset with her was oddly comforting. She was almost looking forward to being on the receiving end of her anger, if only because it would mean that she was safe - and that the car was the worst of her troubles.

Just as she was about to open the door once more, the headlights and inside cabin light both flicked off, and Kirby couldn’t help but kick the side of the car, letting out a frustrated growl. 

It felt good to make noise. She’d been crying quietly for so long that to vocalize her anger felt cathartic. Kicking the door again, much more roughly this time, she let out a battle cry and felt it echo into the trees around her more than she heard it.

Making loud noise to alert whatever was living in the woods was probably a smart idea on a survival front, too. Tilting her head back to stare up at the moon, she let out a yell, almost a howl, and watched with a warm sense of comfort as a flock of birds made themselves scarce, appearing above the tree tops and flying off into the night.

Hunger stabbed at her stomach again just as she was beginning to feel better, so with a resigned sigh, Kirby pulled the car door open and retrieved her sweater, pulling it on and turning to head down the road following the blood trail.

“Fallon?” 

Calling out for her, trying to keep the desperation out of her tone, Kirby followed the trail until it led back into the trees. Standing on the edge of the woods, she tried to decide if she would follow her in - without a phone or a light - when another car approaching on the road stopped her.

Running to the shoulder and jumping up and down, waving frantically, Kirby let out a breath of relief when the vehicle slowed to a stop, lowering the brightness of its headlights. 

“Kirby?”

Squinting into the lights, Kirby tried to make out the figure that had addressed her as he climbed out of the car.

“Kirby, are you okay?”

Evan approached her, and she felt safe. It was an odd effect - she didn’t even know him that well. Not as well as Fallon did.

“I’m looking for Fallon,” she explained, “I saw her - she was hurt, I think, and then I crashed and -” she gestured back in the direction where she’d left Fallon’s car in the ditch before turning to Evan again.

Concern knitted his brows together and he shrugged off his jacket, pulling it around her shoulders.

“Is she out there? By herself?”

He looked at the trees and Kirby followed his gaze, before nodding.

“I was going to follow her but I don’t know where she went, and my phone died.”

“You’re freezing,” he observed, tightening the jacket that he’d draped over her. “Okay, come with me. I’ll take you home and I’ll come back to look for her. With a gun. You shouldn’t be out in the dark at night by yourself.”

“Neither should she!” Kirby insisted, pulling away from him. “We have to go look for her.”

“_ You _don’t have to do anything except make sure that your parents know you’re safe. I promise you we’ll find her, okay? Come on.”

Leading her back to his car, Evan rubbed Kirby’s arms trying to warm her up. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until he’d mentioned it. 

“When did you two get separated?” Evan asked, once she was in the passenger seat of the warm car.

“I… after we got out.” Kirby thought about Nick, and the van, and felt her stomach churn uneasily. “She left with… the band.”

“What?” Evan looked at her sharply as he turned around on the road to head in the direction of her neighbourhood. 

“But I just saw her - just before you picked me up. She was alone.”

“And you said she was hurt?” He asked, reaching into the cupholder between the two of them and grabbing his phone. “She definitely doesn’t need to be wandering around in the woods wounded. Hang on.”

Mounting the phone on his dash, he scrolled through it and dialed, and a voice that Kirby didn’t recognize picked up on the other end.

“Hey, man,” Evan’s voice shook when he spoke. “I need you to do me a favour - all hands on deck. You remember Fallon Carrington?”

The silence in the car was momentarily suffocating.

“_ Yeah _ ,” the voice on the other end replied, almost smugly. Kirby dug her nails into her palms, tightening her hands into fists. “ _ How could I not? _”

Evan either didn’t care, or didn’t have time to complain, before instructing: “She’s out in the woods somewhere. I guess she got away after the swing hit but I’ve got her friend here and she says she’s hurt. You know where the creek starts, by the deer crossing sign? Meet me there. I’m just dropping Kirby off and I’ll come help you guys look.”

The other voice seemed to take that much more seriously, his tone sobering when he responded, “_ Alright. I’ll call you when I get there _.”

Kirby looked at Evan as the call disconnected, studying the way that his face had hardened. She’d always admired how soft everything about him looked. She wondered if he’d really had as big of a crush on Fallon as she’d always claimed that he did or if he was just thinking about getting in trouble for letting Fallon into the concert in the first place.

The ride was relatively quiet, and Kirby felt exhausted by the time they pulled up to her driveway. All of the lights in her house were off - she hoped that her dad was simply still at work, and not out looking for her in fear.

“Do you want me to come and wait with you?” Evan asked as she opened the door.

“No, it’s okay, my dad’s probably just asleep.” The lie came easily, and as much as Kirby would have liked the company, she wanted as much effort to be focused on finding Fallon as possible. 

“Call me if you need anything.”

“I will, thank you.” She tried to force a reassuring smile, but her face ached. Shutting the door, she headed up the path and dug around in the flowerbed for the spare key before letting herself into the house.

Plugging in her phone in the kitchen, she felt the hunger from earlier return with a vengeance, and wondered if it was some kind of involuntary panic response. Opening the fridge as her phone screen lit up and began to reboot, she pulled out a couple of pieces of fruit - more than she’d need - and had just turned to set them on the counter when she heard it.

The one floorboard at the bottom of the staircase that always creaked when she was trying to sneak downstairs for a snack after midnight - it was so soft that she was surprised she heard it at all. 

She felt something, though. Someone nearby.

Abandoning her snack and phone, she edged around the kitchen doorway and peered out into the hall, but saw nothing. Holding her breath, she listened carefully, but there wasn’t another sound. It might have been the wind - she saw that she’d left her bedroom window open when Evan had pulled up at her house.

Her phone chirped to life and she turned back to the kitchen to grab it, quickly dialing her dad’s number.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up…” she groaned in frustration when it rang for what felt like an eternity before finally being picked up by his voicemail. Still, she didn’t have any missed calls from him, so it was likely that he hadn’t even heard about the accident while at work. She sent him a text to let him know that she was alright, just in case, and just as she hit ‘send’, her phone rang in her hands, startling her.

Liam’s number flashed on the screen along with the photo of them from the summer prior.

“Hello?”

“Kirby? What the hell!” Liam’s voice was laced with panic. “I’ve been calling you for like an hour, what the hell happened? Are you alright?”

He had obviously heard about the accident. She felt so relieved to hear his voice that her eyes welled up with tears and her voice cracked when she replied.

“No - I mean _ yes, _I’m okay, but I don’t know where Fallon is and I… I crashed her car and my dad’s still at work and I can’t get ahold of him, and -”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Liam dropped the excitement from his tone and instead sounded soothing, and soft. She felt like he was wrapping her in a blanket fresh from the dryer without even being there. “One thing at a time. You’re not hurt?”

“No,” Kirby sniffled, her voice thick. “But I drove Fallon’s car into the ditch, after she left with this creepy guy from the band.”

“When did you see her last?”

Kirby pulled the phone away to look at the time, only then realizing how late it was.

“Over an hour ago. Liam, I think something bad happened to her. I saw her, for a minute, but she looked hurt, and then we got separated again. Evan Tate was there and he said that they’d go back and look for her in the woods, but I don’t -”

She felt a fresh wave of tears coming on, and pulled the phone away from her face before sobbing openly, trying desperately to catch her breath.

“Alright,” he hummed, shushing her gently. “Listen to me. I’m going to call the police, and then I’m going to walk over. Okay? Just hang on until I get there.”

“Okay,” Kirby practically whimpered, glancing at the small stockpile of fruit that she’d taken from the fridge. “Okay, I’ll wait.”

“Good. I’ll text you the whole time that I’m walking, okay? Just relax. I’ll be right there.”

“Okay,” she repeated, her voice barely above a whisper.

Liam hung up, and Kirby plugged her phone back in to make sure she didn’t miss anything else. 

Grabbing one of the apples she’d pulled out, she bit into it and leaned against the counter. It had been a while since she’d eaten - the hunger was one problem she could solve right away. The rest was a waiting game.

She zoned out while she ate - she hadn’t realized exactly how _ intense _the hunger had been until she realized that nothing she was eating was helping. It felt like she’d been standing there in silence, grazing for an hour when the doorbell ringing startled her into almost choking on her current bite. 

Dropping the apple core in her hand into what she realized was a growing pile of them on the counter, she wiped off her hands and checked the time. Only a few minutes had passed, not an hour at all - it would have been way too quick for Liam to be there. Bright, sharp hope shot through her. Maybe it was Fallon.

Almost tripping over herself to run to the front hall, Kirby jumped up onto the bench next to the door to peer out of the high window. She frowned, squinting into the dark, but couldn’t see Fallon - or anyone - outside the door. Hopping down and swinging it open, she stepped outside onto the porch and looked around, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.

In fact, even the street itself was more quiet than usual - it was almost eerie. Stepping further outside, Kirby headed towards the end of her driveway to look up the street and see if Liam was nearby, yet, but couldn’t see him. Shivering and tightening Evan’s sweater that she still wore around her shoulders, she headed back inside and locked the door behind herself. 

The hunger hadn’t subsided at all, not even after the _ several _apples she’d eaten, but she also knew that if she ate any more she would probably give herself an ulcer from acid alone. She’d just begun to clean up the cores that she’d left on the countertop when she noticed the blood. Almost a handprint, wrapped around the handle of the kitchen sink tap, imprinted in a smear of blood, and a second set of fingerprints were pressed to the inside of the sink, like someone had been gripping the edge of the counter.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Kirby stayed absolutely still and listened for any signs of life, praying that Liam would show up any second. 

Upstairs, there was a thud - distinctly inside of the house.

As quietly as she could, Kirby opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out the hammer from the toolkit, clutching it in one hand as she dialed Liam’s number with the other and put her phone to her ear.

_ “Hello?” _ He sounded out of breath, and she felt guilty for worrying him for a moment, despite how dire her situation was.

“I think someone’s in the house,” she whispered.

“What? Kirby?”

She shushed him, tucking her phone to her shoulder and gripping the hammer in both hands as she made her way towards the staircase.

“I think there’s someone here.”

“Well, go outside.” Liam’s breath caught between his words, and she knew that he had started to run. “Seriously, go bang on a neighbour’s door. Just get out of there.”

“I just - it might be an animal or something. I left my window open.”

“Kirby, _ leave-!” _

She wasn’t sure what had come over her, but she hung up, dropping her phone to the table as she passed it and making her way up the staircase. It felt darker than it usually did, and the muscle memory that usually guided her when she couldn’t see as well seemed to be skewed. She felt like she was a stranger that was only _ mostly _familiar with the layout of the house, a little unsure and shaky on her feet.

Taking a deep breath, she shoved her bedroom door open and wielded the hammer, ready to swing, and saw that it was empty. 

What was more unsettling, though, was that her bedroom window was now closed.

Stepping past the door and looking behind it nervously, Kirby lowered the hammer and crossed the room to the window, inspecting the latches. There was a possibility that the wind had blown it shut - but that wouldn’t have locked it, especially not with the locks on the inside.

The bedroom door clicked shut behind her, and she whirled around, barely managing to stifle a scream.

Fallon stood before her, feet planted on the fluffy faux-sheepskin throw and dripping blood into its plush material. She looked dazed, if not a little thoughtful, and as they locked eyes together, Fallon narrowed hers.

“Fallon?”

The brunette lurched forward, and Kirby dropped the hammer to the carpet to reach out for her. Anticipating the other girl falling into her, she tried to catch her, gasping in shock when Fallon grabbed her arms instead, nails digging into her skin. Kirby winced in shock, twisting away in her grasp a little, yelping when Fallon spun them and slammed Kirby against the door.

She leaned in close - so close that Kirby’s senses were flooded with the coppery smell of blood - and stayed very still for a moment.

“Fallon?” Kirby tried again, feeling her heart pounding against the inside of her ribs. “Whose blood is this?”

She reached for the brunette’s waist, plucking at her shirt carefully and watching her wince away from the touch.

“Were you going to hit me with a hammer?” 

Fallon’s words startled her, but she was glad to hear her say _ something _ \- especially something so very _ her. _

Letting out a quick exhale of relief, Kirby shook her head.

“I thought someone broke in -”

Fallon’s lips were suddenly on her neck - not a kiss, but another point of contact now that their bodies were pushed together so closely. Holding her breath, Kirby squirmed on the spot as she felt Fallon’s hands slip into the open front of her sweater - Evan’s sweater - and shimmied the material down. Kirby let it fall from her shoulders as she stared at the other girl, frozen in shock. Then, she was suddenly acutely aware of the wet sensation of Fallon’s blood-soaked shirt leaking onto her own.

“What happened?”

Kirby wiggled back as much as she could and stared down between them, noticing for the first time that the front of Fallon’s shirt was sliced open. Shiny, wet blood coated her exposed stomach and Kirby felt a lump form in her throat, her earlier worry flooding back to her.

She reached out to touch her, gasping when Fallon grabbed her shoulders and shoved her back again, slamming her into the door for a second time.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Fallon croaked, her voice gravelly and low. It sounded sinister. She ripped the sweater from Kirby before she had a chance to react, bundling it up messily and shoving the ball of material under her arm as she stomped across the room and opened the window.

“Wait -” Kirby moved to follow her, but her legs felt heavy and sluggish. “Where are you going? Fallon -”

Unlatching the window, Fallon shoved it open and climbed out onto the roof, not even glancing at Kirby as she stood up and vanished from the windows view around the side of the house. 

Rushing after her, concerned for her safety, Kirby didn’t think twice before practically diving out of the open window onto the roof, scrambling against the shingles and trying to see where Fallon had gone. She wasn’t anywhere on top of the house, so Kirby did a slow lap around the perimeter of the roof, looking down to make sure she hadn’t fallen and hurt herself any worse. 

She was nowhere to be found, though, and just as Kirby was about to go back inside to try to call her, she heard Liam’s voice.

“Kirby?”

Peering over the edge of the roof, Kirby spotted Liam standing in the middle of her driveway, obvious fear etched all over his features.

“Did you see Fallon?” She called back.

Liam looked around for a moment.

“No, it’s just me out here. What… are you doing on the roof?”

“I was - I saw Fallon.”

Liam looked around once more.

“Do you… still see her?” He asked worriedly.

“No, I’m not… I’m not imagining things! Ugh, hang on, I’ll come let you in.” 

Turning back to climb into her room, something blowing in the wind caught her eye. Hanging from the top branch of the tree next to the garage, was the sleeve of Evan’s sweater. Blood-soaked and torn, rustling in the leaves.


	7. Chapter 7

Kirby could hardly keep her eyes open as she stumbled out of her dad’s car and headed towards the front doors of the school, barely waving goodbye. When he had arrived home much later on Saturday night to the sight of Kirby and Liam curled up on the living room couch, he’d let them sleep. After driving Liam home in the morning and interrogating Kirby for a couple of hours about what had happened at the carnival, he’d let her sleep off the trauma for most of the day. 

She had been exhausted and the rest was needed, but it also had the undesired effect of ruining her sleep schedule, and when she’d finally fallen asleep at 4 am that morning, her three hours of sleep had been so full of nightmares that it had barely been worth it at all.

On Saturday night, the police had arrived at Fallon’s house only to be told by her stepmother that Fallon was fast asleep in bed,  _ if they could please keep their voices down _ , and that she had gotten a ride home from the show with a new friend after leaving her car there.

There was nothing more to be done after that, apparently. Even Kirby’s dad had told the police that she wouldn’t be any help to them - she hadn’t seen anything suspicious and she didn’t have any answers for them about what had happened.

Liam’s mom, of course, was furious that she’d dragged him into the mess at all.

Kirby’s dad had offered to let her stay home come Monday, but she needed the normalcy - and she wanted to see Fallon, who hadn’t been answering any of her texts, either.

Sometimes, when they were walking the halls with Fallon in one of her more daring outfits, people would turn to watch them. It was the most attention-for-no-reason that Kirby ever really got at school. Today though, entirely alone, the front entryway of the school fell eerily quiet as she walked inside. No one was uninterested - even the people who weren’t staring at her seemed to be deliberately doing so out of politeness.

“Hey, have you talked to Trixie?” 

Liam appeared at Kirby’s side and she barely muffled a scream of surprise. His arrival seemed to spur everyone around her into minding their own business once more, and the flow of the hallways started up again.

Shaking her head and trying to blink the confusion away, Kirby turned to Liam properly and frowned.

“Why? What’s wrong with her?”

Liam’s eyes darted back and forth between hers, his face laced with concern. 

“Didn’t you say Evan drove you home on Saturday?”

Kirby felt heavy as soon as she heard his name. Like she’d just laid down for an afternoon nap in a comfortable blanket, a sleepy warmth washed over her and replaced the earlier bleak exhaustion with something much more pleasant.

“Yeah,” she agreed slowly, “Then he went back out to look for Fallon, which is when she came over, and you -”

“Found you on the roof.” Liam finished the memory for her, his tone quick and dismissive. They hadn’t talked about it any further that night, and knowing that he clearly thought she had been going through some sort of temporary madness irritated her to no end.

Taking his hand as they passed Trixie’s locker, Kirby glanced back and noted the cards taped to it - nearly covering the entire door.

“What -”

“Evan’s missing. I guess he and his friends went into the woods and they lost track of him. No one’s seen him since.”

Whirling around to look at Liam in alarm, Kirby felt her jaw go slack.

“What? How is that possible? Those woods aren’t even that big.”

“Well, they probably would have found him by now if he was still in one piece.” Liam’s tone was grim, but he spoke as casually as possible, clearly trying not to set her off again.

The earlier sleepiness was replaced with guilt. Suddenly sharp and alert and fully aware that Evan had only gone back into the woods to look for Fallon because Kirby had insisted that she needed help - only for her to be perfectly fine, apparently - she stopped walking altogether and steadied herself on the nearest locker.

“Hey…” Liam slowed to a stop and dropped her hand, instead rubbing her arm lightly and glancing up and down the hall to see if anyone had seen her stumble. “Are you going to be okay? I can skip first and walk you home, if you want.”

Shaking her head and swallowing hard, Kirby tried to avoid the stares of her classmates and grabbed Liam’s hand again. It was hard not to think about Evan, torn apart by the animals in the forest and laying spread out in the cold. She’d never had much trouble dealing with scary movies, but now that she’d seen such horrifying carnage up close in real life, she found her imagination running away from her with much more ferocity. 

The bell rang, warning them that they were late, and Liam pulled Kirby’s hand more insistently.

“I’ll walk you to Math. Come on.”

* * *

The first thing that Kirby noticed when she walked into class was that Michael Culhane was absent. It was unlike him to miss class unless it was a family emergency, but this time Kirby wondered if something had happened to him at the Carnival that weekend. She silently hoped that the worst case for him would be that he was just resting up, and taking a personal day. She knew he  _ had _ to be okay. He was their school’s quarterback, and she definitely would have heard about it by now if he’d been hurt.

The pop quiz that Kirby had been dreading didn’t happen, and the moment of relief she had when she realized that it would just be a regular class felt selfish. A pop quiz was the least of her worries - people had  _ died _ that weekend. She’d  _ watched _ people die that weekend.

No one seemed to know what was going on. Rumours spread quickly about the carnival, and how it had started. People that had never said two words to Kirby for the first three years of high school were suddenly her best friends - wanting every intimate detail and demanding her time and attention. 

Fifteen minutes into class, when it became clear that even their teacher had given up on trying to get them to focus and stop talking, Kirby put her headphones in and turned her music up, trying to get at least a little bit of her work done. She had wanted normalcy, and she was going to get it, even if it meant being a little standoffish to her classmates.

As usual, Liam waited for her outside of the classroom door when the bell rang, taking her hand and leaning in close to discuss the updates he’d learned.

“So, Trixie’s in my first period History, and she said that her mom wants to sue Fallon’s family for emotional distress, since it’s her fault that Evan’s missing.”

Kirby gave him a bewildered look, and he chuckled softly in response, despite everything.

“I know, I know. It’s idiotic.” He seemed to soften, though, adding, “But I understand that she’s upset.”

_ “You _ don’t think it’s Fallon’s fault, do you?”

Kirby knew that she didn’t even care what the answer was. If Liam hated Fallon enough to think that it was her fault Evan was missing, probably dead, then he was only a stone’s throw away from thinking it was Kirby’s fault for sending Evan after Fallon in the first place.

“Of course not.” Liam shook his head. 

Kirby must have looked surprised, because he chuckled again and squeezed her hand. 

“Look, Fallon has her faults. A lot of them. But that doesn’t mean that what happened to Evan is her fault. I mean, it’s not like she chose to get hurt or lost.”

Feeling overwhelmed with affection, Kirby stopped and turned to him, pulling him closer to her with her free hand and kissing him. It wasn’t uncommon between them in greeting or parting, but something overcame her and she found herself nudging him to lean back into the closest lockers, kissing him over and over, deeper and deeper -

“Can you have sex on someone else’s locker?”

Breaking the kiss and feeling suddenly embarrassed, Kirby pulled back and turned to the source of the voice, eyes lighting up at the sight of Monica Colby.

“Monica!”

The other girl leaned back a little, wincing away from Kirby’s sudden energy, but otherwise didn’t respond.

“I’m just - have you talked to Fallon?”

“Mhm,” Monica reached for her now-vacated locker, giving Liam a dismissive wave of her fingers to move further away. “We had a squad meeting this morning, before first period.”

“And she was… okay?” Liam asked, frowning.

“Aside from stressing about regionals, yeah.” Monica seemed as uninterested in continuing the conversation with the two of them as she was with having them making out against her locker, so Kirby took Liam’s hand again and smiled reassuringly at him. 

“That’s good to know. Thank you, Monica.”

Pulling her boyfriend away, she couldn’t keep the smile from her face as relieved excitement settled in over her.

“They’ll probably have more news in homeroom,” Kirby pointed out, glancing at Liam and slowing her pace a little when she noticed his still-confused expression. “What? What is it?”

“What… was  _ that _ , back there?”

Staring at him and waiting for an elaboration, Kirby cocked her head to the side.

“I mean… that kiss -”

“Oh,” Kirby waved a hand. “I just… I really appreciate you. Especially after this weekend. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there for me.”

Mirroring her relieved smile, finally, Liam squeezed her hand and stopped in the doorway to their classroom, pushing it open for her to head in first.

“Always, babe.”

* * *

Homeroom offered little by the way of news about the accident at the carnival, but when Kirby walked into her third period Lit class and saw Fallon sitting in her usual seat, her breath caught in her throat. 

All she had wanted all morning was to see Fallon with her own eyes and know that she was alright, but now that she finally was being given the chance, she felt angry. 

Images came flooding back to her of Liam rolling up her favorite faux-fur bedroom rug and hauling it outside into the garbage - too stained with the blood that Fallon had tracked in to be saved - and the way that not  _ once _ for the rest of the weekend had Fallon checked in on her or made sure she was still doing alright. 

Marching over to their shared table and wrenching back her seat, Kirby all but flung down her book bag and fell into her seat roughly.

Fallon didn’t even blink, not looking up from where she was buffing her nails with a small foam block. Everything about her looked airbrushed, even close-up - there was no hint of any of the trauma she’d endured over the last couple of days. 

“Hello?” Kirby snapped after a moment.

Fallon exhaled softly, lifting her eyes to Kirby and then turning fully to face her.

“Hey.”

“H-HEY?” Kirby spluttered indignantly, before realizing that her outburst had caused a few of their classmates to look over. Lowering her voice to an angry whisper and leaning in closer, she continued. “That’s all you have to say?”

Fallon regarded her for a moment, before one perfectly manicured eyebrow rose in an infuriatingly unfazed fashion.

Her eyes dropped from Kirby’s face to her chest to her books on the table, and then she shrugged.

“You okay? You look tired.”

Gaping at her, Kirby turned her attention back to the table in front of them and tried to get her anger under control. She had so many questions to ask and so many accusations to make, she didn’t know where to start.

“I was supposed to tell you not to worry about the car. My dad said your dad called him about it but they’re just going to backburner it for now. Everyone’s sort of busy, anyway.” Fallon went back to buffing her nails as she spoke.

Kirby had almost forgotten about the car - it was the least of her concerns, at the moment.

“What about you?”

“What  _ about _ me?” Fallon’s voice grew irritated, quickly, and Kirby felt the same irritation mirrored in herself. “Seriously, what is going on with you?”

“What’s going on with  _ me _ ? You show up at my house - no, break  _ into  _ my house,  _ covered _ in blood, and then vanish into the night and don’t answer any of my calls? What even happened?”

Remembering the slashed open front of Fallon’s shirt from Saturday night, and the blood that had been all over her, Kirby reached for the other girl and was met with a wrist full of sharpened acrylic nails. 

“ _ What are you doing?” _ She snapped.

Startled, Kirby yanked her arm free and cleared her throat.

“You were hurt.”

“So what, you’re just going to prod at me like some kind of Area 51 alien? Don’t touch me, people think we’re gay enough as it is.”

Kirby felt something snap in her mind and immediately prepared herself for the wave of shame and embarrassment that usually followed a comment like that. It was rare that Fallon ever made her feel like that, but whenever she managed to, it was almost too strong of a reaction to bear. 

It didn’t come this time. Instead her skin itched, and she felt the overwhelming urge to look around and see if anyone had noticed them - not noticed Fallon’s comment, but noticed the way she’d reached for her.  _ Why _ had she just done that so impulsively? 

Realizing that no one was paying them any mind, Kirby relaxed, simultaneously sitting upright with Fallon as their teacher walked in and the class settled at attention.

“As many of you know, there was a serious malfunction at the carnival this weekend with… many casualties. No students, thank god, but our quarterback, Michael Culhane, was hospitalized with injuries.”

The eruption of whispering moved across the room like a gust of wind.

“Please let his dick be intact, please let his dick be intact…” Fallon chanted under her breath beside her, catching her eye and smirking wickedly despite the dirty look of disbelief that Kirby gave her. Their teacher clapped one hand down onto the edge of his desk, silencing the room once more.

“We lost a lot of people in the accident and the resulting fire. If you want to talk, or to help someone else who needs someone to listen, we’ll be holding grief group counselling in the auditorium at lunch and after school, today and for the rest of the week.”

Fallon rolled her eyes.

“Which means practicing outside in the cold. Awesome.”

Forgetting her previous injuries, Kirby elbowed her roughly in the ribs, yelping in surprise when Fallon nudged her back, only with considerably more force and intent to hurt behind the gesture.

Heeding it as a warning, Kirby scooted her own seat another half foot away from Fallons, and opened her book, trying to focus on the words on the page instead of her reeling thoughts about the weekend past.

“Come over tonight?” Fallon’s words cut through her introspection.

Glancing up, Kirby frowned in confusion, but found herself nodding before she could even register what she was agreeing to. A grin slowly spread on Fallon’s face before she turned back to her own book.

“Good. We’ll have a movie date. We haven’t in a while.”

Feeling a tiny flutter in her chest that she hadn’t been anticipating, Kirby turned her attention back to her book and turned the page to look busy, ignoring the way that - probably in a gesture of apology, forgiveness, or both - Fallon pressed her knee to Kirby’s below the surface of the table.


	8. Chapter 8

“So I know that you said you had plans with Fallon tonight, buuuuut, my mom’s not going to be home until late. Could I buy you dinner? Cheeseburgers and shakes when I’m done with yearbook?”

Liam leaned against the lockers by Kirby’s as he spoke, smiling at her hopefully. He seemed genuinely relieved at how much more relaxed she had become during the day - she knew that a part of him was probably hurt that, despite all of his coddling and carefulness, it was Fallon that made her feel fully at peace and he knew it - but he didn’t mention it. 

She pretended to consider his offer for a moment before nodding.

“Let me just text my dad. I’m sure he’ll be relieved to have a chance to restock the fridge.”

The last bell rang and Liam stood up.

“Are you going to go watch Fallon’s cheer practice?”

“Fallon’s not at cheer practice,” Kirby answered smoothly, shutting her locker. There was a pause, where both she and Liam mulled over her words. _ How _ had she known that?

“Are you sure?” Liam asked, tilting his head. “It’s Monday, I thought…”

Waving a hand, Kirby shook her head. 

“No, there’s… practice today, but I don’t think she went.”

“Oh.” Hiking his backpack up on his shoulder a little further, Liam shrugged. “Probably still tired from the weekend. It was… a lot. How are you feeling now?”

_ Smooth _, she thought.

Smiling reassuringly, she reached for his hand and squeezed it once.

“I’m fine. Just tired. Thank you.” Dropping his hand again, she reached for her own bag at her feet. “I’m going to go to the library and try to get a head start on some of the stuff I forgot to finish this weekend - come find me after your meeting?”

“You got it.”

Kissing her in parting, Liam made his way back down the hallway he had come from, leaving Kirby to her own thoughts as she made her way to the library. 

Knowing that cheeseburgers and milkshakes were in her near-future, she tried to avoid stopping by the row of vending machines she passed, ignoring the scent of leftover baked goods being bagged up as she passed the propped-open door of the cafeteria. She was starving, but the promise of dinner with Liam hung in the air.

Not only was she hungry, but she was tired - at least that much of what she’d told her boyfriend had been true. 

The library was almost entirely empty, and Kirby’s favorite workstation was vacant. Making her way to the back of the room to settle in, she detangled her headphones and was glad that no audience was around to hear the growling protest that her stomach made as she queued up her studying playlist on her phone.

The words on the page of her History textbook seemed to blur together, her eyes becoming unfocused after only a few minutes of reading. Maybe she had been more tired than she’d originally thought - exhaustion overcame her, and she found herself reaching for her phone to set a half-hour alarm so she could sneak in a quick nap while the library was still empty. 

Barely getting her time entered, Kirby felt her head grow heavier, her eyes struggling to stay open, and pressed her cheek to her arms, folded on the top of the work station. She’d just get a few minutes of sleep in, then meet up with Liam, and then it would be time to get some food and go home, to her own warm bed. The homework could wait - all of her teachers seemed to be pretty sympathetic of everyone that had been involved in the weekend’s disaster, anyway.

Shutting her eyes and trying to relax her back and shoulders, Kirby finally, mercifully, fell asleep.

* * *

Standing outside in the football field, the trees looked so picturesque. I’d never really noticed just how beautiful their color was before. They looked like something out of a nature-y _ Tumblr _post - all deep, rich green and swaying slightly in the fall breeze. So thick and dense, you can see that it would almost look like dusk once you stepped into them, despite the sun still being high in the sky. 

They were tempting.

I hadn’t had any of those ‘run away into the forest and live off of the land’ urges - at least not since I was a little kid. Maybe with Kirby. Nope, wrong. Fallon. With _ Fallon. _Kirby? Fallon.

I knew that I had obligations, but I also knew that I’d feel better if I just took off and spent a little time in the trees. The moisture in the air would make my skin feel better - _ why _ had it been so dry lately? Wait, no, how long had it felt like this? Did it feel this bad this morning?

No… I’d felt fine on Saturday night, once I’d eaten. Sunday had been a little rough, and today I could feel myself slipping even more - but I was fine. I’d be fine. 

When I turned my head all the way to the left, I could see Culhane - staring at the trees, too, about a hundred yards away. I wondered if he wanted to run into them for good, too. He hadn’t been in class all day, and the cast and sling on his arm were pretty good indicators of why.

He looked like he could use a friend. I knew I could.

I’d never noticed the way he looked at me before. Did he always have that look in his eyes when I spoke to him? Letting his eyes dip down my top when he thought I didn’t notice, staring at my lips whenever I was talking?

I didn’t remember him being so tall, either. Staring up at him filled me with a sort of hunger that I wasn’t used to. I almost felt guilty. Everything about him looked… appetizing. 

I barely remember what I’d said to get to that point - my words clearly broke him down, though. Everything was hazy, like a fever dream - fuzzy and soft and impossible to hear properly. But then, he was kissing me.

I’d never been kissed that way before. 

He felt… sad. The way he tried to shift his injured arm around me but couldn’t - his free hand gripping at my bare waist like he had something to prove, like he was trying to soak up as much of the sensation as possible with only half as many receptors as he was used to. The sadness gave way to anger, though - I could feel it in his aggression, no matter how hard he tried to be gentle.

Anger, I couldn’t work with.

Sadness, though. Loss? Delicious.

I didn’t give myself any time to think about the flavour difference between sweet, listless inaction and bitter, bright hope. There were bigger fish to fry, like bringing Culhane with me into those trees. 

Men really are so one-track minded. Even in the midst of a depressive episode about what would happen to his career - his very future hanging in the balance - one little promise that I’d take off my uniform for him and kiss it all better, and I had him marching along behind me, into the darkness of the forest. 

Something about that sad air to him made me want to tell him everything. He and I were so alike - both missing such an important piece. He wouldn’t understand, of course, but I think he would have tried to. Kirby was right - wait - _ I _was right? Whatever - he really was a sweetheart, deep down. A tender soul wrapped in 160 pounds of solid muscle. In another life, he would have been the perfect boyfriend.

It was a shame I’d have to kill him.

* * *

Waking with a start, Kirby jolted upright and whirled around to find the source of irritation. Standing back with his hands up in defense, Liam stared back at her in shock, then reached out and pulled one of her headphones from her ear.

“Whoa. Are you okay?”

“Oh my god, how long was I asleep for?” Kirby scrambled to grab her phone, realizing she had slept through her alarm.

“I have no idea - but it’s okay. It’s only 4:30. You needed your sleep, anyway.” Liam’s hand cupped the side of her face, his thumb smoothing over the imprint of the material of her sweater that was left on her cheek.

“I - sorry. It’s so warm in here and my work was _ so _boring -”

“Do you want to skip dinner? I can just walk you home if you’re not feeling well.” Liam sounded frustratingly gentle, _ again _, but Kirby didn’t have the time to be annoyed.

“No, no that’s okay. I had the _ worst _dream, Liam, there was so much blood, and I -”

He didn’t let her finish her thought, instead reaching out for the other side of her face with his free hand and holding her still until she visibly calmed down.

“Hey, hey, shhh. It’s okay, you probably have some… mild PTSD from the carnival. It’s totally normal. It’s not surprising that you’re having nightmares.”

“It wasn’t _ that _,” she tried to protest. “I was -”

“Hey,” Liam repeated, shaking his head slightly. “Seriously. It’s okay. Are you ready to go?”

Kirby slumped back into the seat at her workstation, sighing and reaching for her book to pack it back into her bag. The burger that she’d been craving earlier didn’t seem nearly as appealing now.

_ ...Liam _ did, though.

“You know what?” She glanced up at him, managing a small smile before giving him an appreciative once-over. “I don’t think I’m that hungry anymore. Maybe we could just go back to yours? You said your mom is going to be home late, right? My dad isn’t expecting me back for a while, either.”

Realization dawned slowly on Liam’s face, and he smiled back.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am,” Kirby promised, getting up and reaching for his hand. “I want to make it up to you for being so sweet all weekend, anyway.”

“You know you don’t have to make anything up to me,” Liam pointed out as Kirby led the way towards the library exit.

“I want to.”

* * *

“What is _ she _ doing here?” Laura Van Kirk practically snatched Liam out of Kirby’s hands the moment that the couple walked through the front door of his house. “I told you not to bring guests without asking.”

Giving Kirby a strangled, apologetic look over his mother’s death grip of a hug, Liam gently wiggled free and straightened out his shirt.

“I have been worried sick. Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

Patting down his pockets, Liam shrugged.

“I must have forgotten it. I told you, I have Yearbook Club on Mondays.” He was keeping his tone level in order to not incite any more hysteria, but Kirby could hear the annoyance beneath it.

“I can’t have you running around with no phone, god knows where, with _ god knows who _,” Laura gave Kirby a pointed, disgusted look before turning to her son again. “Not with some sick maniac out on the loose.”

Liam paused, glancing between Kirby and his mother.

“What? What maniac?”

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Laura raised the tumbler glass that Kirby had only just noticed her holding to her lips and took a long, steadying sip before answering.

“Michael Culhane - that… _ lower income boy _from your school - was found dead about an hour ago.”

Kirby’s ears started to ring, so aggressively that she barely heard Laura’s next words.

“At first, I suspected gang violence, but I heard from Annie Tate that they found him torn to shreds.”

Liam’s mouth was hanging open in shock when Kirby looked to him for reassurance, and she felt two emotions hit her at once. Crushing, terrified loss - and guilt.

“I want you inside for the rest of the night.” Laura grabbed Liam’s arm and pulled him closer still to her, giving Kirby one last disparaging look, before adding, “I’m sure your father is waiting for you. You should go.”

“I have to meet Fallon, anyway.” Kirby’s words were more for Liam’s sake, trying to make him feel less guilty for his mother’s rudeness, and as she turned to swing the front door open to make her exit, she heard the beginning of what she was sure would be an uncomfortable argument between mother and son.

As she closed the door behind herself and stood on the front steps, Kirby pulled her phone back out and realized that she had missed a couple of texts from Fallon.

_ Fallon: heeeey babe _ _   
_ _ Fallon: i think we need to rain check our date night, i got super sick and didn’t even end up going to cheer practice _   
Fallon: tomorrow? you can sleep over, if you want :)

Sighing at the sudden turn for the worse that her afternoon and evening had taken, Kirby shoved her phone back into her pocket and started down the driveway to begin her trek home.

She’d never had a dream about hurting someone before - not like that, at least. And for Culhane to turn up dead, sounding suspiciously like what she’d dreamt - she must have overheard something. Something subliminally wormed its way into her subconscious in passing - maybe someone who had planned to hurt Michael, giving off hints that she hadn’t noticed in the waking world. 

Even with that conspiracy theory rolling around in her mind, her thoughts continued to drift to something far more divine. Maybe she could see the future? Maybe she could see the present.

Despite her horror, that idea made her feel incredibly sad. The idea that she had been napping safely in the library when Culhane, sad and lonely, was being torn to shreds in the forest.

When his dad had passed away the year before, he had told Kirby in confidence that the guilt had been the worst part. His father had always been there for him, but he’d died without Michael at his side. He’d always said that he couldn’t think of a worse way to go. To think that after all of the kindness he had put into the world, Michael had died terrified - and completely alone - Kirby wanted to cry just picturing it.

Turning at the end of Liam’s street to take the shortcut and cross through the elementary school field nearby, Kirby watched as a few children still straggling in their after-school daycare programs chased each other around the jungle gym, screaming and laughing under the careful watch of their supervising carer.

That had been how she’d met Fallon. While the other girl’s father worked long hours and her pre-estranged mother couldn’t be bothered, Fallon often spent an hour or so after school sitting with Kirby and helping her build _ very exclusive, members only _forts out of foam blocks. Being raised by a single working father, Kirby cherished those after school sessions that she got to spend with Fallon - in the springtime, they puddle jumped; in autumn, they collected leaves. 

She’d actually feared, even when she was very young, that it would be the summer that pulled them apart from each other - but it was Fallon’s doing that held them together. Insisting on playdates at her house while Kirby’s dad was working; spending multiple nights in a row camped out in Fallon’s living room playing games and watching movies while her parents screamed and threw things at each other in the other room - somehow, despite everything that had been going on at the time - Kirby only had good memories of those moments.

They’d been through all of each others’ traumas together, and each time they had become a blurry part of the past - the least interesting part of every memory that they were connected to. This carnival would become the same thing, too. As would losing Culhane. With the two of them together, Kirby knew she’d be fine - and she’d make sure that Fallon was, too.


	9. Chapter 9

Kirby had decided not to talk to Fallon about Culhane that night - but by the time Fallon phoned her to get ready for school together the next morning, it appeared that she had already heard.

“I bet that funeral is going to be  _ huge _ .” Fallon punctuated her words by sipping what Kirby assumed had to be her coffee almost directly into the receiver. “Are you going?”

Stunned into disbelieving silence for a moment, Kirby shook her head to herself and scoffed.

“Of course I’m going, he was my friend.”

Making a sympathetic sound in the back of her throat, albeit not a particularly genuine sounding one, Fallon sighed.

“Right, right.”

“Are you going?” Kirby asked, if only to be polite.

“Nah,” Fallon’s voice sounded disinterested, as if she were deciding not to attend a particularly boring-sounding birthday party. “I still have a ton of homework to do and I think Monica’s going to come over on the weekend to brainstorm new routine ideas - since practice is cancelled for the time being.”

“Oh, how ever will you go on?” Kirby deadpanned, feeling more and more irritated the longer the conversation went on. 

“You’re sweet,” Fallon cooed. “I gotta go, they closed the one forest-side road off with all of this… serial killer in the woods hysteria. My detour adds like ten minutes to get to school.”

She didn’t give Kirby a chance to answer, or even say goodbye, before she hung up.

It wasn’t totally out of character for her to be flippant about things that didn’t fall into her orbit - or to be a little bit selfish without realizing how the people around her were suffering - but this specific brand of selfish-Fallon gave Kirby the chills. Not simply unaware of the turmoil around herself, this specific Fallon seemed irritated - aggressively trying to move past the situation that had no effect on her life.  _ She _ didn’t care, so why did everyone else? It was like it was an inconvenience to her.

Liam wasn’t going to be picking her up that morning - apparently his mother had gotten him an emergency therapy appointment, along with suggesting that detaching himself from Kirby for more than a few hours at a time would be good for his soul, apparently - but he’d still sent her a quick, hopeful ‘good morning’ text for her to see when she woke up, so she did feel a little better.

She’d barely slept, but it felt selfish to skip class over it. Michael had had plenty of friends - much closer friends than Kirby was - and the idea of stopping to let herself grieve when she didn’t deserve it made her feel too guilty. 

The walk to school felt longer without Liam. She had left a little earlier than usual, taking her coffee to-go in one of her dad’s travel mugs and leaving before he’d even finished his own breakfast. The air seemed considerably colder, and the thin layer of early-morning frost that covered everything wasn’t usually present once the sun had been up for a little longer. Everything looked a little more dead than usual. The air was stiller.

The hallways were a little quieter, too, though Kirby shook the spooky feeling off and reminded herself that it was only because it was so early in the morning. With fewer students milling around, it was obviously going to be less loud. It had nothing to do with everything that had been happening.

A photo of Culhane had been hung in the front display case, surrounded by trophies and medals. Smaller action shots, clearly from the yearbook club, surrounded the larger centerpiece. Photos of him running track and throwing footballs littered the case. There was a shot of Culhane, bundled up in his dad’s vintage college sweatshirt, poring over a textbook in the library next to Kirby during a particularly intense class project the year before. 

She barely had time to register the sad, heavy feeling in her chest before someone stepped up beside her - a wave of perfume smell; a flash of dark hair in her peripherals.

“I didn’t think you’d - oh.”

Turning to who she expected would be Fallon, Kirby was instead greeted with the sight of Trixie Tate, who was staring straight ahead into the glass display. 

“Sorry,” Kirby corrected herself, “I thought you were someone else.”

Trixie didn’t turn to Kirby when she spoke, setting her jaw and continuing to glare at the display instead.

“I figured. This all seems a little… unfair.”

Despite how outwardly cold she looked, her voice was softer than Kirby had been expecting. Tired, even. 

Trixie gestured to the case weakly, finally turning to face her.

‘Tired’ had been an understatement. Her tone had been nothing compared to her appearance - the other girl was visibly exhausted, bags appearing under her eyes where she normally wore her expensive concealer; her posture slouched and small, like she was trying to shrink into herself. 

“What’s unfair?” Kirby asked.

“No one even  _ cares _ about my brother still being missing. I’m sorry about him,” she gestured back at the case. “I really am, but everyone just… forgot about Evan.”

Kirby’s face fell a little.

“I - Trixie, I don’t think anyone  _ forgot  _ about -”

“Yes they  _ did _ !” Trixie threw her hands up in defeat, her tone exasperated. “Everyone either forgot or they stopped caring. He hasn’t even been  _ gone _ very long - he could have been kidnapped, or he could be hurt somewhere, and it’s going to start getting cold out -”

“Trixie.  _ Trixie.”  _ Trying to calm her down, Kirby reached for her, but the other girl drew back quickly, shaking her head.

“Forget it. Even if the rumours are true and he’s dead, the least they could do is work harder on bringing him home. My mom’s a mess.”

Remembering Trixie’s mom - and the rumours about filing a lawsuit against Fallon’s family - Kirby sighed. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Of course you are.” Trixie dropped her hands to her sides and exhaled, seeming to deflate in the process. “I need to get to Photography.”

Trixie turned to walk away just as the doors behind Kirby opened, sunlight pouring into the otherwise poorly lit front entryway. Steeling herself to put on her best ‘feeling fine’ act as the hallways grew busier and busier while more students arrived, Kirby set her jaw, hiked her bag up on her shoulder, and turned to head to her own locker.

* * *

Unexpectedly, Culhane’s funeral wasn’t as big as Kirby had been picturing. She almost thought that she had the wrong place when she and her dad pulled up to the cemetery, spotting only a small crowd waiting. 

Milling awkwardly by herself as she waited for her father to park the car and return to her side, Kirby tried to survey the group and find a familiar face. She recognized Culhane’s mom - and his younger sister close by - from the one time that she’d met them at a game. Everyone else was a stranger, though, and it was then that she realized how big the quarterback’s reach had been, even outside of school.

* * *

“I told you I wasn’t going,” Fallon’s voice through the receiver sounded unfamiliar. Devoid of emotion of any kind, she spoke to Kirby as if she barely knew her. “Besides, you said your dad was taking you.”

“I still thought you’d come.”

Fallon scoffed.

“I barely knew the guy,” she pointed out. “Sucks, though,” she added as an afterthought.

“It was so sad,” Kirby sighed, crossing her room to climb up onto her bed and pull her duvet up around her knees. She still hadn’t changed out of her outfit from the funeral - she’d felt too emotionally worn out to get into anything more comfortable, but the discomfort from the dress and tights was tempting her to get up and change into her pajamas instead.

“I guess,” Fallon hummed. “His whole future was shot though, maybe whoever it was was just putting him out of his misery.”

Kirby pulled the phone away from her ear to stare at it in disbelief as if she’d be able to see the other girl, or some kind of explanation on the screen. 

“ _ Jesus _ , Fallon.”

“What! I’m just saying -”

“I have to go.” Hanging up before Fallon had another chance to speak, Kirby locked her screen and tossed the phone across her bed, kicking it even further away where it landed. Ignoring its buzzing as Fallon called her back, she detangled from the duvet and climbed out of bed, heading to her closet to change.

* * *

“I’m sorry you guys had a fight, but is it bad if I’m glad I get to have you to myself again?” Liam propped himself up against the headboard of Kirby’s bed, reaching for her hand and then trailing his fingers over her palm.

“We didn’t have a  _ fight _ ,” Kirby reminded him, for the third time in three days. She opened her mouth to better explain when her bedroom door - already cracked - was pushed further open and her father poked his head inside.

“I said door  _ open _ , please.”

He left once more, and when Kirby turned to face Liam again, he was biting back a laugh. Shushing him, she pushed his shoulder gently and then laughed out loud when he pushed her back, much more gently.

Her dad had been considerably more lenient with the two of them lately, and she couldn’t tell if it was because of the lack of Fallon that he’d been noticing around their house, or if he was still just worried about her wellbeing after everything that had happened over the last two weeks.

Fallon had only shown up to she and Kirby’s shared Lit class once over the last three days, and she had seemed so sick that it barely even seemed odd that the two of them hadn’t talked.

If she were being honest with herself, Kirby would acknowledge that she still felt stung by Fallon’s attitude surrounding Culhane’s death. Sure, she hadn’t been close with him, but she knew that Kirby was, and the lack of checking in made her feel more than a little neglected. She would have dropped everything for Fallon if she’d been upset - the fact that she was realizing for the first time that maybe it was one-sided was alarming.

Liam had been a godsend. Despite clearly going through something of his own, Kirby could rely on him. He’d come over every day for the last three days after school, ignoring questions about what his mom would think, and made her feel  _ light  _ again. She still missed Fallon, but having someone there who cared for her wellbeing, making her laugh and forget everything for a few minutes at a time, made her feel like everything was finally going back to normal.

Staring at him now, all soft and content just to  _ be next to her _ , she reached up and touched the side of his face.

“What’re you thinking about?”

“Culhane,” Liam answered honestly, causing her eyebrows to knit together in confusion. Chuckling at his own strange answer, Liam shook his head and slid over to lay down next to her, staring up at the ceiling. “I just feel bad. I haven’t stopped thinking about it, honestly. We should do something for his mom and sister.”

Kirby propped herself up on one elbow and looked over at him.

“You guys weren’t close. In fact, I think your exact words were ‘I can’t stand that guy’.” 

Liam’s mouth flattened into a thin line, and he shrugged again.

“I just think it would be nice.”

Kirby regarded him for another moment, then leaned over to kiss his cheek.

“You’re sweet.”

Smiling at her softly, Liam hummed.

“Love you.”

“You too. But I’m starving.” Slipping off of the edge of the bed and hopping to her feet, Kirby held a hand out to help Liam up, too. “Lets see what my dad’s doing for dinner.”

* * *

“Did you hear about the kid from MGH?” 

Fallon slid into her usual seat next to Kirby in their shared third period, smiling. Her voice startled Kirby - she’d only spoken once in class recently and her voice had matched her appearance then, cracked and growl-like. Now, though, it was sharp and punctuated with an audible sense of mischief, her eyes sparkling to match when Kirby finally looked at her face.

“You look nice,” Kirby offered, turning her attention back to her book.

Fallon’s hand shot out and wrapped around her forearm, squeezing gently. It was an unnecessarily affectionate reaction, but Kirby was used to her acting that way when she was particularly excited about something.

“You didn’t answer!”

“Answer what?” Kirby glanced up again and sighed. She still felt a little sore about how Fallon had treated her, and she had yet to hear an apology, but something about the way she looked so much healthier, now, comfortable and happy, pulled on Kirby’s heartstrings. She couldn’t help but feel a little sucked in, leaning closer like the other girl had a magnet hold on her. “The MGH kid? No.”

“Someone killed this freshman in one of those abandoned condos by the lake. Same as before.” Fallon twitched her eyebrows, chewing her lip in anticipation of Kirby’s reaction.

“And you’re… excited about this?” Kirby asked.

“Yeah! Well, obviously not that some little kid died but, they think whoever did it is moving closer to the city so they reopened the forest roads. No more long drives to school, and they’re gonna lift the curfew too so we can finally hold practices again...”

Fallon prattled on contently, and Kirby watched her intently. Her skin looked better than it had for the last few days. The healthy glow was back, blood actually pumping under her skin and bringing a flush to her face as she grew more and more involved with her story. She had succumbed to a messy bun by day three of being sick, but now her long hair was shiny and curled loosely, hanging down her back and bouncing every time she shifted in her chair to further animate her points. 

“... and anyway, I miss you.”

Snapping out of her thoughts, Kirby focused on Fallon’s face again and raised an eyebrow.

“You miss me,  _ and…” _

Sighing in defeat, Fallon fixed her features into an almost believable pout. 

“And I’m sorry. I was just stressed and I didn’t stop and think about how  _ you  _ were feeling.  _ Are  _ you okay?” Her hand was on Kirby’s arm again - her fingertips felt hot where they were curled around her.

“I am,” Kirby admitted, smiling a little. It felt good to say it out loud. She had been feeling a little better over the last few days. The funeral had been good closure. The carnival was already becoming a nightmare memory of the past - the once-clear images that kept her up at night were turning fuzzy.

“Good. Come over tonight? I’ve been a literal hermit lately and I need the company.”

Fallon’s offer hung in the air between them for a moment, before Kirby nodded.

“Sure. Yeah, that sounds really good.”

Squeezing her arm one last time, Fallon let her go and turned her attention to the front of the room as their teacher entered, popping her pen between her teeth and flipping open her book.


	10. Chapter 10

Finally spending time with Fallon on a more regular basis had made everything begin to feel normal again. Even with what seemed to be some kind of a nasty virus returning - and Kirby felt like she may have caught whatever it was from Fallon - the other girl being around for movie nights and dinners when both of their parents were busy had been a healing experience.

Healing for  _ Kirby _ , that was. Fallon’s mystery illness only seemed to be getting worse, and despite Kirby insisting that she spend a night or two alone to relax and get better, the other girl was becoming increasingly persistent about having Kirby glued to her side at all times when she wasn’t in school or at cheer practice. 

She felt a little guilty for shrugging Liam off as much as she had been, but where Fallon had become clingier, he had been becoming more and more closed off. If he wasn’t staring off into space and barely paying attention to her, he was talking nonstop about everything that had happened in such a short period of time in their town. As bad as it made Kirby feel to think so, it was depressing and exhausting. 

“Trixie sent me a Facebook message this morning telling me that she was going to kick my ass on Friday,” Fallon said, her tone as light and conversational as if she were announcing that she’d decided to try a new hairstyle. “Something about calling an emergency practice when she’s trying to organize a search party.”

Kirby shifted a little, choosing her next words carefully. She was stretched out on Fallon’s bed with the other girl’s head in her lap, pretending to watch whatever reality show was playing on the TV screen across the room. 

“It would probably mean a lot to her if you guys all came out, maybe after practice?”

She watched as Fallon rolled her eyes, feeling her shoulders stiffen in irritation. Remedying the situation by carding her fingers into her hair, she breathed a quick sigh of relief when Fallon simply closed her eyes, calming down.

“We’ll be tired. I run a tight ship,” Fallon huffed. “Besides, you don’t hold a search party for a dead body. That’s what police dogs are for.”

Kirby was quiet for a moment.

“Evan is still missing.”

Waving a hand dismissively, Fallon opened her eyes again and fixed Kirby with a disbelieving sort of look.

“He’s dead, and you know it.”

“No, I don’t,” Kirby insisted, “and neither do you.”

Fallon, clearly growing bored of the conversation, squirmed to sit upright and turned to Kirby, changing the subject.

“Liam looks like he lost weight. Trying to make sure he fits into his dress for homecoming?”

“Funny,” Kirby deadpanned, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know, he seems stressed out. I haven’t really talked to him much this week.”

Fallon’s eyes flashed in a familiar, wicked sort of way, and Kirby knew what she was going to ask before the words even left her mouth.

“Who needs to  _ talk?  _ I’ve heard haunted and depressed dick is the  _ best _ . Lucky you.” 

“I wouldn’t know,” Kirby hummed, trying to shrug the conversation off entirely. She picked at a loose thread on the throw blanket she was stretched out on, avoiding the other girl’s eye.

“ _ I _ could check for you. Give you a full performance review.”

Her eyes shot up to the other girl’s face, locking on Fallon’s, and then narrowed. 

“No, no thanks. I don’t need you to fuck my boyfriend, but that’s very generous of you to offer.”

She felt an uncomfortable prickling sensation creep up the back of her neck, accompanied by little jolts of adrenaline shooting into the tips of her fingers.

“Is he a good kisser, at least?” Fallon pressed on.

“Compared to what, the exactly zero other boyfriends I’ve ever had?” Kirby pointed out. There was venom in her tone, even if it wasn’t in her words. She wanted to snap at Fallon, but didn’t have the ammunition. Pointing out that Liam had been her only boyfriend - while Fallon had made herself popular in other ways - was over the line, and she knew it. Something about the look on Fallon’s face said that she already knew what Kirby was thinking, and she was urging her to say it.

She didn’t, though.

She sat still, glaring, until Fallon shrugged and suddenly closed the space between them, kissing her.

She’d dreamt about it -  _ once,  _ and only once - and then spent the entire day feeling dirty, jumping whenever Fallon spoke to her and avoiding eye contact with everyone, as if worried that they would read her thoughts. It had been confusing, and after a full day of guilt, Kirby had finally felt better and decided to move past it. It had been the first time they’d spent more than two weeks apart, during the summer, and when she looked it up in her dream encyclopedia - behind a locked door with all the windows closed, just in case - she had been informed that  _ ‘intimate dreams about friends’  _ often just meant that you missed them in another aspect. That much had been true - so she’d tucked the dream away in the back corner of her mind and never let herself think about it again.

This - real life - was different. She felt an immediate, overwhelming rush of affection, but it wasn’t the hazy, soft, dreamworld kiss that she’d almost forgotten about. Fallon was cold. Her lips were chapped, and cracked, and as Kirby reached up to hold her arm, she felt frail. 

And then, Kirby remembered how sick she was, hence spending so much time with her in the first place.

_ And then,  _ Kirby remembered Liam.

“What the fuck?” Wiggling back across the bed, and nearly falling off of the other side, Kirby pushed Fallon away and wiped at her lips with the back of one hand, eyes widening as the consequences of what they’d just done came crashing over her like a wave of cold water. 

Despite her outwardly death-like appearance, Fallon’s immediate laughter lit up her entire face. 

“Holy shit,” she managed between giggles, toppling onto the pillows. “Was that better than Liam?”

“No!”

“No?”

“I mean - I -” Her stuttering answer only set Fallon’s giggling off again, and she could feel her face turning hot with blush. “I have to get home, it’s late.”

“Oh, come on,” Fallon whined, finally getting herself under control as Kirby picked herself up from the bed and grabbed her sweater, beginning to pull it over her head. “Stay the night.”

“You seem to be feeling fine,” Kirby huffed. “I’ll call you when I’m home safe.”

“Fine,” Fallon sighed, huffily crossing her arms despite the tiny ghost of an amused smirk on her face. “Love you.”

Grabbing her bag from the floor and hiking it up onto her shoulder, Kirby rolled her eyes and made her way to the bedroom door.

“Say it back!” Fallon snapped.

  
“I love you too, you know that. Try to get some sleep.” Kirby could already feel her heart rate calming, and felt both guilty and embarrassed for her dramatic reaction, but she had already committed to leaving - and it really  _ was  _ getting late. There was still a curfew in effect - which she had already missed, intending to sleep over at Fallon’s - so she would need to head home quickly if she wanted to avoid getting into trouble.

* * *

The next morning, Liam texted Kirby to let her know that he would be picking her up. He’d taken a break from it while his mom had insisted on driving him herself - she was convinced that he was going to be kidnapped in broad daylight and dragged into the forest to be murdered. 

Despite her kiss with Fallon the previous night, Kirby felt excited to see Liam again. They’d only really seen each other in class, and he’d seemed distracted on top of needing to focus on his class work, so the idea of getting to spend some time together on their walk and maybe catch up felt like a breath of fresh air. 

She’d barely texted back to confirm that she was looking forward to it when he texted her a second time - this time a link, to an article updating on Evan Tate’s disappearance.

Only scanning the headline and the subline, Kirby felt an uneasy churning in her stomach. It felt like guilt, but she knew it had to just be regular nausea. 

Apparently, they’d found so much blood that they had no choice but to confirm that he was dead, despite not having found a body yet. The line was cut off in the middle of a sentence about how it was likely the work of the forest wildlife, but with a quick glance at the clock, Kirby realized that she didn’t have the time to read the article  _ and  _ finish getting ready before Liam arrived.

Managing to throw together an outfit and even grab a cup of coffee before Liam arrived, Kirby realized that Fallon hadn’t phoned her - a sure sign that she was probably not going to be at school that day. She  _ had  _ been looking pretty rough the night before, and after their kiss, Kirby wasn’t complaining that she would have at least one day to cool off before seeing Fallon again.

Her walk with Liam was quieter than usual, but he did seem to be in slightly better spirits than he had been for the last few days. 

“Did you get to read that link that I sent you?” Liam asked, as they approached the lawn of the school. 

“I haven’t opened it. You want to paraphrase?” Kirby felt the cool autumn breeze nipping at the knuckles of her hand that was linked with his and resisted the urge to let go of him and shove her hand into her pocket.

“I guess they found some of Evan’s clothes just… soaked in blood. It’s not likely that he’s running around naked and half-empty. They think it was wolves.”

“Not the apparent serial killer slash cannibal we have running around?” Kirby asked.

“Hard to say, without a body,” Liam shrugged.

The doors opened to a flood of noise, whispers so thick that there was almost no point in people trying to keep their tones hushed. Posters from the upcoming search party were all taken down, and the glass case that housed the memorial for Culhane was open, and being compacted as if to make room for another section. 

“I have Calc with Trixie, do you think she’s going to show up?” Liam asked, glancing over at Kirby.

“Probably not,” she breathed, finally letting go of his hand as they approached her locker. 

“Where’s Fallon, today?”

“Sick, I think. She looked pretty rough last night.”

Reminding herself of the night before only sent images flooding into her mind, and she guiltily tried to squash them away. Liam smiled obliviously, if not a little sympathetically.

“Ah. I’m going to go drop off my pictures for yearbook. I’ll see you in Chemistry?”

He leaned in to kiss her in parting, and she quickly returned it, reminding herself how routine it was. He was her boyfriend, and she loved him.

Too distracted to pay attention in her first period Math class, Kirby settled in at her spot and discreetly pulled out her phone, clicking the article link that Liam had sent her and scanning it for more information.

Liam’s paraphrasing had been pretty spot-on, she realized, only pausing as she scrolled by one of the photos from the scene.

Blood shocked the dull scenery around it, so heavy and gruesome that it looked like it had been poured out of a bucket rather than a person. Bright red against the frosty greys and browns of the leaves on the ground, it was broken up by torn pieces of clothing - Liam had been right, and so had Fallon - there was no way that Evan was still alive out there.

The next photo was worse than the first - what was very clearly some kind of human tissue was stuck to the bloody torn leg of a pair of jeans, laying haphazardly across Evan’s jacket.

The sight of it made her heart ache for a moment. It was practically his signature piece - Kirby had never been particularly close with Evan, but he’d been wearing it almost every time she’d seen him. In fact, he’d wrapped it around her like a shock blanket, the night that he’d rescued her after she’d crashed Fallon’s car.

No - that wasn’t right; he couldn’t have.

That was the last time that he’d been seen alive as far as anyone knew, and she wouldn’t have had a chance to return it to him between him dropping her off and going into the forest to meet his demise.

When had she given it back to him?

Frowning, Kirby stared off into space and racked her brain for a moment, nearly falling over herself to get out of her seat when the dismissal bell startled her. 

She rushed to meet Liam, and the lab presentations in their Chemistry class kept her mind busy and free from the gruesome images from the news site for another hour.

She knew it wasn’t fair, but Kirby felt excited about her third period Lit class for the majority of second period, but just as the bell rang, she remembered that Fallon was out sick for the day. Reminding herself that this was a good thing, that they needed a day apart to cool down, Kirby tried her best not to feel  _ too _ let down and focus on the new material being introduced.

New books were always exciting. Kirby found it easy to get ahead in her reading-centric classes, as whatever class-assigned book she had in her bag at any given time was usually a good way to kill time between studying. 

As the box at the front of the room was opened and every row was handed a stack, Kirby reached out for the student at the table in front of her to hand her two copies - she would bring Fallon hers, later - and flipped it over to admire the cover.

Glen Duncan’s  _ The Last Werewolf  _ sat innocently in her hands, its shiny soft cover gleaming in the normally unflattering fluorescent lights from above. 

“ _ The Last Werewolf  _ explores both the usual theme of transformation, man versus self, and also themes of changing times, technological advances, and adapting to modern life.” The teacher’s voice caught Kirby’s attention and she looked up again, watching as he listed the themes on the blackboard. “I want everyone to have read up to and including chapter four, for Monday, please - there  _ will  _ be a discussion, and participation is part of your grade.”

A collective groan filled the room, but Kirby quickly snapped her copy open and scanned the first page thoughtfully. She was barely through the first page when a whispered conversation from the table behind her distracted her.

_ “I heard they found all of his organs and they’d been rearranged like it was some kind of cult ritual.” _

_ “Where did you hear that?” _

_ “I don’t know, I just heard it.” _

_ “Well  _ I  _ heard that he faked his death and ran away because his mom is such a psycho.” _

_ “His mom is  _ not  _ a psycho.” _

_ “Of course she is, look at how Trixie turned out.” _

Kirby was about to whirl around in her seat and interrupt, when something snapped inside of her at their next words.

_ “I heard he went looking for Fallon Carrington and she was at home the entire time. Talk about crying wolf.” _

Glancing at the book in her hands again, a high ringing began in Kirby’s ears, and she saw black spots in her vision.

She knew exactly where she’d last seen Evan’s jacket. When Fallon had taken it from her, the night of the accident, and then vanished into the dark with it. Fallon  _ had  _ seen Evan after he’d gone looking for her - she had to.

Fallon being the last person to see Evan alive was one thing, but Fallon being the last person to see Evan alive and then  _ lie  _ about it was something else entirely. 

“Ladies, quiet in the back row, please.” Kirby’s gaze flickered from the book in her hands to the blackboard once more as the teacher continued.

“As I was saying, one of the most common themes in werewolf stories is man versus self - grappling with one’s own beastliness while growing weary of trying to continue maintaining human appearance. If fighting off the inner monster is impossible, then why continue at all? Do we all have a real moral compass, or are we instinctively animals, dressing up and forcing a facade of civilized behaviour?”

Raising her hand, Kirby stood up from her seat, gathering up both her and Fallon’s copies of the book.

“Yes, Ms. Anders?”

“I need to be excused.”

She barely waited for a confirmation before rushing out the door, ignoring the suspicious whispers from her classmates left in her wake.

* * *

Promising the housekeeper that Fallon was expecting her, Kirby rushed inside of the Carrington house and up the stairs, all but kicking Fallon’s bedroom door down.

She looked much better than she had the night before. She was glowing, and had actually managed to do her hair and makeup despite not having anywhere to be that day. Fixing Kirby with an alarmed, if not annoyed look, Fallon dropped the magazine she was reading and snapped:

_ “What  _ the fuck are you doing?”

“I know  _ exactly  _ what is going on!” Kirby insisted, marching closer to the bed and shoving Fallon’s copy of  _ The Last Werewolf  _ at her. “You’d better start talking.”

“Is this for Lit?” The brunette asked, seemingly unbothered by the accusation. She glanced down at the floor and sighed. “And are you wearing your dirty fuckin’ shoes on my carpet?”

“What?” Kirby glanced down at herself. “Oh. Shit. Sorry.” 

“Now, what exactly am I supposed to be talking about?” Fallon asked, putting the magazine aside as Kirby toed off her shoes and then patting the bed next to her for her to sit down.

She stood her ground, though, pointing accusingly.

“I know what you’ve been doing. And I know why.”

“What have I been doing, then?” Fallon looked up at her innocently, tilting her head to the side.

“I know  _ you’re _ the serial killer in the forest. I  _ know  _ you killed Evan, and… and…” Kirby felt some kind of new knowledge tingling in the front of her mind, and choked back a dry sob at the realization: “I know you killed Culhane.”

_ How? How did she know that? _

Fallon stared at her for a moment, eyes narrowing scrutinizingly before rolling them as she groaned softly.

_ “Fine.”  _

“Fine?” Kirby spluttered.

“Yeah, fine. You caught me. Congratulations, Whorelock, you cracked the case.”

“W-what?”

“I did it?” Fallon confirmed, raising an eyebrow in annoyance. “I did it. I killed Evan. I killed Culhane. I killed that little pervert from MGH.”

Kirby had almost completely forgotten about the freshman.

“So, let’s hear the theory.” Fallon’s tone was smug, and something about it was almost calming. If she wasn’t worried about herself, why did Kirby need to be worried for her?

“What do you mean?”

“Why I did it. You said you knew. I want to hear it.”

“Because you’re… I don’t know how it happened, but I know  _ something  _ went down that night after the carnival. You were injured, and then all of this started. And then in class today, we were talking about how -”

Fallon turned the book that Kirby had given her over in her hands and scanned the cover quickly, then cut Kirby off with a loud, genuine laugh.

“Oh my  _ god,  _ no.” Fallon’s voice was mocking. It reminded Kirby of some long-forgotten childhood feeling, and she felt squirmy and embarrassed. “No goddamn way did you  _ run  _ over here, all breathless and cinematic and whatever, to accuse me of being a  _ werewolf.” _

“Well, I…”

“No. Jesus, Kirby, you  _ idiot,  _ werewolves aren’t real. Sit down.” Fallon sighed, tossing the book aside and patting the spot on the bed beside herself again. When Kirby hesitated, she growled more insistently. “Sit.”

Quickly climbing onto the bed beside the other girl, the two of them faced on another and Fallon flipped her hair back over her shoulders, crossing her legs. 

  
“Okay. I know you’re my best friend, and I love you, and we tell each other everything, and I  _ sooooo _ owe you one for keeping it from you, but I’m sorry. I just couldn’t really find the right time, and everything was going so well between us, but… fine. Are you ready? I’m going to tell you what really happened that night.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings / Serious Talk - Making sure that people reading this are comfortable and safe is considerably more important than maintaining a spoiler-free/surprising fic, and I do know that a lot of people reading this fic haven't watched the source material of the AU (Jennifer's Body) so I just want to make a few things clear! This story doesn't contain any overtly sexual overtones or instances of rape/sexual assault, HOWEVER, as many people know, Jennifer's 'death/undeath' in the film is seen as a metaphor for surviving sexual assault, and this chapter features Fallon ('Jennifer') recounting her own murder/undeath from a first person perspective. Despite this being strictly a murder in this story, the language of helplessness, etc, might come across too familiar to sexual assault survivors and trigger negative memories. 
> 
> If you want to skip this chapter entirely, or begin reading and find that you're having trouble finishing it, please just skip it! The plot will continue in the last chapter and be explained through other characters with less intense language, and should all tie together just the same.

You know when you just  _ know  _ that a man is evil? It’s so easy to tell, too, because most of them are so  _ proud _ of it. Even the not evil ones; the edgier ones, want you to think that they’re something wicked because they think it makes them seem more interesting. They really took that whole ‘girls only go for bad boys’ mantra and ran with it. 

The one thing about the  _ really  _ evil ones, though, is that they  _ are  _ unfortunately interesting. And knowing that I wasn’t going to be the only one who was interested made me  _ more  _ interested. Pathetic, I know. Sue me.

I couldn’t shake it, though, and I think in any other situation I might have been able to, but I’m  _ pretty  _ sure that I was in shock. Plus, you said it yourself that he was into me.  _ Plus,  _ you didn’t stop me from leaving.

I know, I know, I know. It wasn’t your fault. I’m over it. Promise.

I really wish you’d tried just a little harder, but I’ll drop it. Given the circumstances, I think this all turned out just about as perfectly as it possibly could have. Most girls aren’t so lucky. 

There was a period of time where I pictured how it was going to look on the news, or what photo of me they’d have blown up on a poster and displayed at what would obviously be a massive funeral. Knowing what we know now about how this town handles tragedy, it wouldn’t have been that great of a tribute, probably. 

I knew you would be sad if I was gone, though. I couldn’t stop thinking about you the entire time.

We pulled over and bounced through the shoulder of the road, and the sound of all of the tiny branches and long grass scraping the sides of the van were  _ so  _ so loud. I kept trying to squeeze my eyes shut but every time I did, I was picturing zombies clawing at us as we crunched over them. Remember when we rented  _ Land of the Dead _ on Halloween? Remember how I couldn’t sleep for days?

I could feel the shock wearing off, too. Every bounce when we went over a root or a clump of dirt made me feel more and more lucid. I don’t think I’d ever been so scared in my life. And when we stopped, I think I finally had the sense to try to run for it, but I barely remember. I just remember the van door opening and then suddenly I was on the ground.

The whole concept of ‘evil’ stopped being interesting. I just wanted to go home.

I used to love those trees. You know I did - we  _ both _ did. I loved that we could go out there and just scream and act like wild animals and no one could hear us or tell us to quiet down. It used to be sort of cathartic, y’know? Especially when my mom left.

But no one could hear me screaming, just like old times, and I just kept wishing over and over again that I’d die before they finally stopped walking. 

I didn’t though, not right away.

You’d have thought I was some kind of trapped animal, the way that I was kicking and screaming. It took the entire band to carry me into the clearing, so at least I have that to be proud of. 

I did my best, Kirby. I really did.

Remember when you told me that I wasn’t an ugly crier? It was right after my mom left, and I apologized for being ugly, and you told me that I was still pretty? That was the first nice thing anyone had said to me all week. I’m pretty sure I made a liar out of you that night, though. I thought begging for my life would work, but I couldn’t even get the words out. I was a  _ mess _ , Kirby. A snotty, hoarse, pathetic mess.

So, as it turned out, my assessment of ‘evil’ was a little too accurate. Like…  _ sacrificial cult  _ evil. Have you ever been stabbed? Even a little bit? I hadn’t. One time was enough, though, I wouldn’t make the effort to relive it.

I’ve never felt that much pain all at once in my life. I’m not kidding, I think I could actually go through childbirth now without any drugs. When the burning started to slow down, I remember thinking that I felt god-like. If my guts didn’t fall out and I managed to make it back to the main road without bleeding out, no one would ever be able to tell me anything ever again. I’d probably start fights for fun, actually. 

You know what the worst part was, though? 

They left me there.

I thought Nick, that creep, must have cut something important on accident because I swear it was like my legs were paralyzed. Turns out they were just really  _ really  _ fucking cold. Bad night for a slutty outfit, I guess.

So I laid there.

On the cold, fucking  _ hard  _ ground, feeling my blood going sticky and scabby and  _ gross _ , and thinking about how they’d probably turn my death into some spooky podcast episode. I knew they’d be looking for me immediately. A rich white cheerleader from a small town high school with a bright future doesn’t go missing for more than twenty minutes without trending worldwide and becoming a national tragedy. I thought that maybe you’d come looking for me - that was a nice thought, for a moment, until I remembered that you’d have no fucking idea where to start, even if you did. You seemed kind of pissed at me, anyway.

Wow. You were pissed at me, and now I was dead, or about to be, at least.  _ That _ would fucking show you.

If the fact that I was used for a virgin sacrifice and then tossed aside like an old cum rag wasn’t insulting enough, I think the fact that I was used for a virgin sacrifice by a group of idiot men who didn’t know what the ‘virgin’ part of virgin sacrifice  _ really _ meant was even worse. Like, come on, you’re going to kill me, and not even for the right reasons?

I mean, to be fair, I wasn’t a virgin on any count. But I can’t believe that they couldn’t even do a simple Google search. Do men really think that the laws of ancient magic and voodoo or  _ whatever  _ it is are actually governed by an obsessive, turn of the century misogynistic societal expectation for sexual purity in women? Do they think Satan is down there doing hymen checks?

A virgin sacrifice means you’re a virgin to  _ being _ sacrificed, not an  _ actual  _ virgin. Back in the day, or whatever, they’d haul someone from the village out and take some blood and  _ usually  _ the person would live just fine. Medicine was a little tricky back then, but the intent was good. Seriously, I read up on this. You should Google it if you don’t believe me. 

Anyway, they couldn’t use the same kid twice. Most things calling for a ‘virgin’ just meant ‘new to being used in these rituals’. 

I donated blood last year for the blood drive that the cheer squad organized. Remember? You had to hold my hand.

I guess that counted. It’s all I can think of, unless one of those times I passed out at a party, someone used me for devil worship without me knowing about it. My money is on the blood drive, though.

So, as I was saying, I’ve never been stabbed before. I wasn’t sure what the general procedure was supposed to be. I almost threw up when I looked down - I think part of me was starting to… fall out. Leave it to men to make a mess of literally everything. 

I kept getting these weird rushes of cold, and my heart was slowing down and then picking up - I thought ‘this is it… no…  _ this  _ is it…’ so many times, I lost count. 

By minute forty-five, I felt alright. Starving, though. I chalked it up to half of my stomach contents lying in the grass around me. So, I did what anyone else would do, and picked my ass up to go home. 

_ That  _ was when I saw you driving on the road, and I couldn’t let you see me all… ripped apart and bloody. You do have a tendency to overreact about these things. Sorry I didn’t stick around. I saw what the car looked like and… yeesh. You figured it out, though, so you don’t get to hold it against me.

The longer I walked, though, the hungrier I got. And your house was closer, anyway. Honestly, all I planned to do was maybe raid your fridge and see if your dad had bought any more of those little pizza stackers. 

Remember how I said I felt like a god, earlier? I felt like a dog, now.

I couldn’t force myself to care about making a mess or leaving blood all over the counters. I knocked shit over and I made noise and I didn’t care who heard me. No one was home, anyway. You surprised me by showing up - I sort of thought you’d have been at Liam’s or maybe at the police station or  _ something  _ else, but I was so excited to see you.

I’m sorry for scaring you.

I didn’t mean to freak you out, honestly. And I didn’t mean to get mad. But you smelled so…  _ different. Good _ different. Unfamiliar. 

I don’t know how to describe it. I was almost let down, I wanted  _ familiar _ , I wanted your perfume and your laundry detergent and your shampoo. It was still really nice, but… how do I describe this?

You smelled like home. A crackling fireplace and those stupid wall plug-ins that my stepmom is so obsessed with. But then, wrapped up in the smell of like, a four-course meal at a five-star restaurant. 

I swear, I could have eaten you on the spot. But I didn’t want to hurt you. 

So that’s when I went to find Evan. 

Or rather, he came to find  _ me,  _ the  _ idiot _ . Like a turkey walking into a Thanksgiving dinner. Y’know, I only slept with him once. I think I probably could have held off on chasing him through the forest. I bet you he would have let me eat him if I just asked; pushed my tits up and batted my fuckin’ eyes at him.  _ Men. _

So, here we are. 

  
_ You’re not mad at me, _ are you?


	12. Chapter 12

“I got your text, what’s the emergency?” Sidling into the quiet aisle of the library that Kirby was situated in, Liam sunk down into a squat to be closer to her eye level. Squinting at the worn title of the book in her hands, and then slowly surveying the various books splayed out around her on the floor, he cleared his throat. “You planning on joining a coven?”

Closing the copy of  _ The Exorcist’s Handbook _ that she was holding, Kirby looked up and fixed her boyfriend with a sympathetic look. He wasn’t looking at her, though, and was instead getting comfortable on the carpet and reaching for another book.

_ “Out of the Devil’s Cauldron _ ?  _ The Dictionary of Demons _ ? Seriously, Kirby, what is all of this?”

“We should talk.”

Liam dropped the book he was holding and looked up, his face suddenly much more serious. Concern laced his features and it made Kirby want to ignore all logic and hug him. Everything she was about to do was burning her from the inside out, but she steeled her resolve and put her own book aside.

“It’s about Fallon,” she began, feeling guilty as relief spread over Liam’s features. He obviously thought she was there to complain, or vent, or express some kind of worry - she savoured the last moments she had of his obliviousness.

“What about Fallon?”

“I think… No, I  _ know  _ that she killed Evan.  _ And  _ Culhane.”

Liam’s features hardened. He’d finally stopped bringing it up after a while, and Kirby didn’t like being the one to remind him, but it had to be done. 

“ _ And  _ that kid from MGH,” she added, as an afterthought.

“I’m supposed to believe that a 110 pound girl not only overpowered two huge guys, but that she  _ killed _ them? Kirby, they were convinced that Culhane was killed by a wild animal until they found more evidence. Not to mention they haven’t even  _ found  _ Evan, but… it looks like something was  _ eating  _ him.”

“That’s just it!” Kirby insisted, trying to keep her volume low enough that no one came back to shush them. “She  _ is  _ eating them. At least, I think so.”

“You think Fallon Carrington is a cannibal?” Liam was verbally pulling away from her now. She could hear the confusion and disbelief being replaced with concern - but not the typical empathy-laced worry that he usually held for her.  _ This _ was concern for himself. She wondered if he was mentally mapping out an exit strategy from the library.

“No, she’s…” Kirby sighed, watching Liam’s eyes flick around the books once more. “I thought she was… changing. I guess she is, but not like I thought. I know she killed those boys, Liam, she  _ told  _ me.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” he leaned back, clapping his hands onto his knees. “She  _ told  _ you. Why didn’t you say so?”

“Don’t be a dick to me right now, I’m seriously freaking out!”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. But you know she didn’t do it. You  _ have  _ to know she couldn’t have. Besides, didn’t you say that you saw her the night Evan went missing?”

“Okay, you’re gaslighting me, now.”

“No,” Liam chuckled, a humorless, disbelieving little sound as he shook his head. “No, I’m not. That isn’t even what that  _ means _ . Kirby, I think you seriously need to talk to someone.”

“I’m talking to  _ you  _ right now, and you aren’t even listening to me!” She could hear herself growing more shrill, but it was impossible not to begin feeling trapped and start reeling.

“That’s not what I meant. I mean a professional.” Raising his hands in defence before Kirby could react, Liam continued: “I don’t mean like in an asylum, just… a therapist. This year has started off on a really fucked up note, and  _ my  _ therapist always tells me that stress can manifest itself in really weird ways if you don’t treat it. You saw something terrible, and so did Fallon - and you never even got to process any of it before more terrible things started to happen. Fallon’s messing with you. Maybe she’s just going through something, too. Maybe… she  _ thinks  _ she killed Evan and Culhane like… symbolically. Evan was looking for her that night, and maybe if the cheer team had actually been outside at practice, they’d have seen Culhane and stopped him from going into the woods.”

“This isn’t…  _ no _ , she  _ admitted  _ it! She said she went into the forest after she came to my house and she killed Evan. I think the guys in that band really hurt her, Liam, something is seriously wrong with Fallon!”

“I heard you, I heard you.” Glancing around to make sure that no one had heard her outburst, Liam reached over and touched her knee, but she shied away and frowned.

“She told me everything. I think she’s… a demon, or something.”

Liam looked into her eyes for a moment before dropping his gaze to the floor. Kirby could tell that, despite his worry, he was biting back a mean comment.

“Look, Liam, it isn’t safe for us to… be together. I’m sorry. I just need to make sure that Fallon stays away from you while I figure out what to do about her.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what does this have to do with me?” 

“I think… she went after Evan  _ and  _ Michael because of me. I don’t want you to be next.”

“What about the kid from MGH?” Liam pointed out.

“I haven’t figured that one out, yet. But I will.” Kirby lifted up one of the books in gesture.

Exhaling heavily and sitting up on his knees, Liam shook his head.

“You think your best friend is a demon who is killing boys twice her size and  _ eating  _ them, and so you need to break up with me.”

“Okay, when you say it that way, it just sounds like an excuse, but I -”

“Right before homecoming.”

A heavy weight settled in Kirby’s chest, guilt making her feel sick for a moment. 

“We can still be friends?” She tried.

Liam seemed distracted, though. He stood up and dug in his pockets for a moment before pulling out two tickets to the dance, and holding them up for Kirby to see.

“If you want to still go,  _ as friends,  _ after you’ve talked to Fallon, let me know. I wanted to talk to you.”

Kirby rolled the idea around in her mind for a moment before nodding.

“That’s probably okay.”

Turning to go, she sighed.

“Liam, wait. I  _ am _ sorry.”

Liam turned, almost smiling. 

“It’s okay. Promise.”

The weight lifted, and she relaxed into herself, just a little.

“I’ll let you get back to your exorcism.”

Huffing out a single attempt at a laugh, Kirby shook her head and went back to her books, digging through them once more.

Just as she was beginning to feel hopeless - all of the books had plenty of information on  _ killing  _ demons, but none on managing it like an illness - a wave of giddy anticipation washed over her.

It wasn’t hunger - or rather, it was, but the sort of hunger that would immediately be remedied. This wasn’t a stomach growling during a long study session, this was the moment that she sat down at the table for Thanksgiving dinner after waiting for hours. 

It didn’t feel like her, though. It felt like she was watching herself feel it through some kind of emotion-vision TV.

Where was Fallon?

_ Parking lot. _

She ran the entire way, ignoring the strange looks she got from everyone else in the halls as she juggled her occultist books and barely managed to keep her bag over her shoulder. Crashing out the front doors and running towards where Fallon’s car was parked, Kirby tried to slow herself to a light jog and appear as nonchalant as possible.

Leaning against the top of Fallon’s car and partway into the window, Kirby recognized one of the boys from she and Fallon’s shared Lit class. 

She’d never spoken to him, or even bothered to remember his name, but she could practically feel the way he was looking at Fallon. Straightening her own posture and walking with more purpose, Kirby appeared behind him and cut him off midsentence, leaning around him to look at Fallon.

“Hey, I tried to text you but I didn’t have any phone service. Can you give me a ride home? Are you leaving right now?”

Fallon turned her attention sharply to Kirby, giving her a withering glare.

“We’re sort of in the middle of something, Kirby.”

“It’s an emergency,” she insisted.

The boy turned to Kirby curiously, and she watched as his face went from total enrapture to calmness, even confusion. 

“Sorry,” Fallon snapped. She hit the automatic window button on the door panel beside her, jolting the passenger window up a half inch - enough of a warning for both Kirby and the boy to get off of her car and stand back. “I have to go, too. Call me later, babe.”

Her comment had been directed at Kirby, but the boy waved too as Fallon reversed her car and then sped out of the parking lot without another word.

Feeling relieved, and dully annoyed, Kirby gave the boy beside her a single disparaging look before hiking her bag up further.

“Get a grip, dude,” she snapped, readjusting her books and turning to head back into the school.

* * *

“Hello?”

“ _ Can’t let me starve, babe _ .”

Fallon’s words were a chilling substitute for ‘hello’ as Kirby answered her phone call. 

Sitting upright at her mirror, Kirby dropped the hairbrush she was gripping, wincing as it clattered loudly onto the surface of the vanity.

“Are you kidding? Order a pizza. Jesus.”

Fallon’s laugh made Kirby grow more tense, clutching her phone to her ear as if worried she was going to drop it, too.

“You know I can’t do that. What else did we learn, today?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, so we’re  _ lying _ to each other, now?” Fallon sounded surprisingly annoyed. “I didn’t realize. I wish I’d known that before I told  _ you  _ everything. I saw the books, Kirby, I’m not stupid.”

Glancing that the pile of library books on her bed, Kirby sighed.

“I’m sorry. I guess I just forgot.”

“Another lie.” Fallon was almost stage-whispering. Kirby could picture the look on her face perfectly. A wicked, curious look of amusement that normally made her completely weak in the knees. She was thankful that the conversation was taking place over the phone - she wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long with Fallon there in front of her to tear through her defences. 

“I bet you’ve been reading them all over and over again since you got home.”

She  _ had  _ been reading them all over and over again since she’d gotten home. Feeling an uncomfortable chill run up her spine, followed by the prickly feeling of being watched, Kirby climbed up quietly from her vanity seat and made her way over to her window to peer out of it. 

“ _ Now  _ I bet you’re checking to make sure I’m not spying on you.” Fallon’s voice was crackly through the phone receiver.

“Are you?” Kirby asked, not sure that she wanted to hear the answer.

“Well,” Fallon dragged out the word, laughing again when Kirby let out a quiet, nervous whine of protest in response. “No, not exactly. I just know you. We’ve always had a connection, you know that.”

Kirby was quiet for a moment, and then finally spoke again.

“I broke up with Liam today.”

“Ooh, that’s too bad, Kirby, I’m sorry.” she sounded surprisingly genuine, and the softness of her tone juxtaposed against her earlier taunting flirting was jarring. “I never liked him, anyway. Plus he was ugly.”

“No, he isn’t,” Kirby pointed out.

“No,” Fallon sighed, “You’re right. He’s a  _ very  _ pretty boy. Especially now that he’s filling out. Maybe he still has time to try out for football - I hear there’s an opening.”

“That isn’t funny.”

“Yes it is,” Fallon laughed. “Lighten up.”

“Fallon,” Kirby groaned. “We have to get a handle on this. You’re going to get caught.”

“You mean you’re not going to kill me?” Fallon sounded surprised.

“What?” Kirby spluttered, “Of - of course not.”

“That’s what all your little books say to do, isn’t it?” 

“No! Well… yes, they do. But I’m still trying to find something better. I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life in prison, or have some freaky evangelicals show up in town with pitch forks and torches.”

“Okay, now I think that you’re really confusing me with a werewolf,” Fallon hummed. “What are your ideas so far?”

“Like I said, I’m still working on it.” Kirby insisted. “I need you to keep your head down, until then. Please?”   
  


“Kirby, I’m  _ hungry.” _

“Fallon, please promise me.” 

The pleading in her tone must have had the right effect, because after a moment to decide, Fallon sighed. 

“ _ Fine. _ ” 

“Thank you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

That was clearly the right thing to say, because she heard Fallon make a soft, endeared sound in the back of her throat.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. I have to go.”

“Send me pictures of your homecoming dress!” Fallon insisted, then hung up. 

  
  


True to her word, Fallon had kept her head down and stayed out of trouble. Every day that Kirby saw her in class, she looked worse for wear, though, so she spent most of her free time scouring the internet and library books for more information to try to relieve some of her suffering - just in a more ethical way. 

Fallon made sure to complain as much as possible whenever Kirby was around, too, trying to feed into her guilt of leaving her hungry and sore and tired. The worst part was that it  _ was  _ working. Kirby found herself staying up later, ignoring her school work, and chugging coffee throughout the day to try to come up with a solution. 

By the time the homecoming dance rolled around, Kirby was exhausted. Liam’s mother, thrilled that he and Kirby were only going to the dance  _ as friends _ , had rewarded him by lending him the car for the evening. As Kirby climbed into the passenger side seat and made sure that her dress was fully tucked in before shutting the door, she realized it was the first time she was ever driving with him.

They’d missed a lot of firsts, she realized. She felt a little guilty for not focusing on their relationship as much -  _ enjoying _ it as much - while it was still in one piece.

Fallon was nowhere to be seen once they walked into the dance, and it left Kirby feeling paranoid - but the hunger was still gripping her entire body in its claws and she knew that for Fallon, it must have felt even worse - which was a sure sign that she still hadn’t fed yet.

“You okay? You seem a little distracted.” Liam took Kirby’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly, but unlike before, he dropped it immediately after.

“I’m fine,” she promised, “I… don’t see Fallon, do you?”

Liam didn’t even look before shaking his head.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Uh, sure.” Kirby watched him walk stiffly away. He seemed jumpy, now that she was paying better attention.

With Liam gone, Kirby turned her attention back to the crowd dancing and squinted, trying to make out Fallon among the other people. She hadn’t sent Kirby any photos of her own dress, so she had no idea what she was looking for. Everyone blended together in the dark lighting, and just as Kirby was beginning to feel hypnotized and tired, Liam reappeared with two red plastic cups and handed one to her.

“You said you wanted to talk?” She tried, tilting her head and trying to catch his eye.

“Yeah, uh,” Liam finally faced her. “I do. Not… here, though. Can we go somewhere quiet?”

“Of course,” Kirby sipped from her cup as she followed him, trying to get a read on him. She was almost worried that it was about Fallon, paranoia seeping into her mind and screaming ‘ _ HE BELIEVES YOU’  _ over and over again. It couldn’t have been that, though. He had asked her for this talk at the same time she’d told him about everything.

“Is everything okay?” She tried, following him out of the gymnasium and down the hallway. 

“Uh… yeah.” Liam’s voice sounded higher than usual - a rare nervous tic that she didn’t see very often. “Yeah, it’s okay. I just have to talk to you.”

He led her out of the back doors of the school and towards the football field. It was colder now than it had been when they’d arrived, and that had hardly been long enough ago to warrant such a dip in temperature. Shivering, Kirby couldn’t help but stare at the trees. They’d looked more inviting in her dream, the one she'd had the afternoon that Fallon had killed Michael.

“Are you cold? Here.” Shrugging off his jacket, Liam quickly draped it over Kirby’s shoulders. It reminded her of Evan, and she felt another pull in her chest.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, watching him check the grass for dampness before sitting on the ground and putting his back to the trees. Following suit, Kirby sat close to him and pressed her thigh to his, waiting for him to speak, first.

“I’m sorry for not listening to you before. When you were trying to talk about Fallon.” Despite his words, Kirby could hear a distinct ‘but I still don’t believe you’ in his tone. She ignored it, turning to face him as he continued. “You’ve been going through a lot and I… have been sort of dealing with some stuff too. I should have just told you and then been there for you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Liam.” She grabbed his hand gently and squeezed it, this time continuing to hold it. 

“I haven’t been totally honest with you,” Liam admitted. “I… sort of planned to do this closer to graduation, but the timing never felt right and then you just… dumped me in the library, and I realized it’s now or never.”

“I’m sorry, I -”

“No, I have to say this, please let me finish.” Liam turned away from her again, but continued to hold her hand. “I… wow. Kirby, I’m gay.”

Blood rushing in her ears made everything sound muffled and muted for a moment.

“Kirby, are you listening to me?” Liam continued. The confidence from saying it the first time clearly opened the flood gates, because he repeated: “I’m gay. I… I’m gay. I’m sorry. I’m gay.”

“I  _ heard _ you the first time!” She insisted, feeling her cheeks flush. She quickly backtracked, realizing how terrible it sounded. “I… I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I’m… that’s fine. Obviously. I’m glad you told me.”

“I just didn’t want you to think that maybe this break thing was temporary, and I didn’t want us to graduate and try to make plans for college or something without coming clean about this. I should have said something, but I was still figuring it out.”

“It’s okay,” Kirby insisted again, squeezing his hand once more. “I um… I love you. You know that, right?”

“I love you, too,” he promised. Relief softened his features and she had to resist the urge to hug him - to collapse into him and start crying, and let the stress from the last few months just melt away. Her own confused thoughts were the least of her concerns now that she had Fallon running around either starving or killing people. 

It was that realization of the unimportance of her thoughts that made her turn to him and blurt out:

“I think I’m gay, too. Or… or something. I don’t know, I’ve been really confused, lately.”

“It’s not Fallon, is it?” Something about the way that Liam asked made Kirby realize that it wasn’t a question borne from disgust, but from concern. She’d been attached to Fallon for as long as Liam had known her. 

“I… maybe. I don’t really know.”

“It’s okay,” Liam insisted, putting his hand on her knee reassuringly. “Sometimes it’s unexpected people, right?”

Kirby looked him in the eye, and saw the tiny hint of sadness there, and remembered Culhane - and Liam’s reaction to his death. Surging forward, she wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders and hugged him.

Squeezing her back, she felt him let out a tiny, shuddering breath - the closest she was sure she’d ever see him to crying - and tucked his chin over her shoulder.

“My ears are burning!”

Fallon’s words, suddenly so close by, shocked Kirby out of her comfortable state and she wrenched away from Liam, whirling around to the source of her voice.

“What’re you doing here?” Kirby asked, trying to sound as stern and authoritative as possible as Fallon stepped out of the trees and began striding towards them. 

“Time’s up.”

Leaping to her feet as a surge of hunger - so sharp it was like being stabbed - hit her in the gut, Kirby immediately stepped in front of Liam as he scrambled to stand as well.

“Fallon,  _ no!” _

“What am I, your stupid iguana that you  _ lost _ ?” Fallon hissed, striding closer and closer before slowing to a stop in front of them. “Seriously, move. I gave you  _ so  _ much time, and instead of working on it, you’re out here making out with your ex? Fuck you, Anders.”

“That’s not what we - Fallon, just  _ go home _ .”

“No.” Lifting herself up onto her toes, Fallon looked over Kirby’s shoulder and smiled at Liam. “Start running. I love a little head-start seasoning.”

“Fallon, this is  _ insane _ ,” Kirby insisted, trying to keep her voice calm in hopes of keeping the other girl under control. 

“No, you know what’s insane? You broke up with your dumbass boyfriend and didn’t even ask me to come to this dance with you. You’re  _ such  _ a shitty friend, you know that?” 

“ _ I’m  _ a shitty friend?” Kirby exclaimed, outrage overcoming her desire to mediate. “Are you  _ kidding  _ me? You are  _ literally  _ trying to kill my boyfriend.”

“ _ EX- _ boyfriend!” Fallon corrected.

“First you kill the guy that’s just trying to help us get you home safe, and then you kill one of my only friends other than you, and  _ now  _ you’re trying to kill Liam. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you  _ that  _ jealous that I have anyone in my life other than you?”

“ _ I’m  _ jealous of  _ you?”  _ Fallon snorted, “That’s funny. What exactly would I be jealous of? I’m fucking indestructable, you stupid whore.”

“No, you’re not,” Kirby pointed out. “Not when you’re like this.”

“Yeah, actually,” Fallon snarked, “I am. Look.”

Lifting her hand to her mouth, Fallon flipped both Kirby and Liam off, then bit down hard on the tip of her finger. Even through the wind and their conversation, the ‘crack’ sound was clear, and blood immediately poured down Fallon’s chin onto her dress. Liam let out a yell of disgust as Fallon spit the partial digit onto the grass before them.

Whining in pain, Fallon shook her hand and winced, as if she’d simply crushed it in a car door or broken one of her nails too close to the base. With a few deep breaths, she messily wiped the blood from her face and smeared it on the back of her arm.

“See? Good as new. Almost.”

Wiping more of the blood from her injured hand on her dress, she held up her hand - and sure enough, the bone had already began to sprout anew from the end of her finger, slowly beginning to grow back.

“Does it always take so long?” Kirby asked. She tilted her head to the side and kept her tone taunting and light, despite the urge to throw up from what she’d just seen.

“Just because I won’t eat you doesn’t mean I won’t kick your ass,” Fallon threatened.

“What… the  _ fuck  _ is going on!” Both girls turned to Liam, and Kirby remembered needing to keep him safe. “Is it true?”

He looked at Fallon, next, and Kirby felt her blood boil as the brunette smiled sweetly, tilting her head to the side and batting her eyes.

“You’re goddamn right, sweetheart. Now, are you going to run, or not?” Fallon smirked. “Ooh! We should do a time trial! My record right now is that kid by the lake. I think that was under three minutes. Kirby, you want to keep time?”

“Liam,” Kirby insisted, “Run. For the school.”

He took off without any more prodding, and just as Fallon was about to grab for him, Kirby grabbed her wrist, wrenching her back.

“No, no, we should talk.”

“Kirby, I don’t have time for this. And neither do you. Now, it is in your best interest to let me take care of Liam, before he gets help and this entire thing goes up in smoke. Are we clear?”

“Fallon,” Kirby pleaded, trying to dig her heels into the ground and hold her back. “You can’t do this. Please. We’ll work something else out.”

“Ugh, get…  _ off of me!”  _ Shoving Kirby hard, Fallon wriggled free and took off after Liam. The dirt was hard, and cold, and Kirby knew that she’d have more than a few bruises if she ended up surviving the night. 

Getting up and brushing herself off, she took off after them both.

Even though Fallon was weak, and had clearly slowed down, the supernatural aspect to her skillset still gave her a good advantage over Liam. Kirby could feel the sympathetic hunger wrenching in her stomach and knew that Liam had to be terrified. 

She could almost see the appeal in chasing him. Almost. She knew that the part of her that thought so was simply Fallon, though, not herself. 

It was hopeless to even try to stop her, now, and Kirby knew it. 

Tears blurred her vision as she ran, barely paying attention to the stitch in her side or the harsh, sharp pain in her chest as she tried to catch her breath. She was massively overexerting herself, and without the survival-instinct adrenaline rush that Liam had, or the demonic speed that Fallon had, she watched as more and more distance grew between her and the pair of them.

Then, Fallon caught him.

Kirby had never heard that sound, before. Not from Liam, not from anyone. A scream, a chorus of crunching, and then sobbing. It was so much more raw than it sounded in the movies. It was so much more clear than it had sounded at the carnival.

She caught up, then, instinctively diving onto Fallon and wrestling her off of Liam. They’d rarely ever played that way, and they’d certainly never fought like it. As Fallon scrambled onto her back and grabbed for Kirby’s arms, her hips, wherever she could reach to try to shove her off, Kirby balled one hand into a fist and swung on her with all of the force she could manage.

She’d never punched anyone, before. She thought it was a pretty good first attempt.

Fallon’s head rocked to the side and she spat blood, fresh wet blood mixed with the caking, dried blood on her face from biting off her own finger earlier. Kirby felt the bony digit digging into her wrist as Fallon fought against her, still not quite fully formed.

Beside her, she was vaguely aware of Liam trying to sit up. His breathing and coughing sounded distinctly  _ wet _ , and somewhere in the back of her mind, Kirby knew he didn’t have a chance. 

“It just  _ kills you  _ whenever I have something you want, doesn’t it?” Kirby demanded, wrenching her arms free from Fallon’s grip and pressing her forearm down to her neck. 

She watched Fallon try to choke out words between laboured, ragged breaths, letting her wrestle her arm free to finally speak.

“It kills  _ you  _ that I can  _ have  _ whatever you have.”

Screaming in what could only be described as pure rage, Kirby hit her again, and then again, screaming until her throat burned. It reminded her of that night that she’d crashed Fallon’s car in the forest. She’d been so worried for her back then.

In the distance, she heard the sounds of the back doors of the school slamming open, and people talking curiously amongst themselves. Climbing off of Fallon quickly, Kirby leapt to her feet and waved her arms desperately trying to catch their attention.

“Here! Over here! Someone help!” 

She heard Fallon take off behind her, but ignored it in favour of dropping into the grass beside Liam and trying to survey the damage. 

His sobbing had dulled to hiccuping and panting for air, his own blood and tears soaking his face as he reached out for Kirby.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

Something about her own voice reminded her of how Liam had sounded when she’d returned his coming-out sentiment. It wasn’t going to be okay - maybe  _ she _ wasn’t, either. Maybe he’d said that to make her feel better, just like she was doing for him, now.

“I didn’t believe you,” he gasped, reaching up and trying to take her hand. It was only then that she realized how broken his arm was, and the unfortunate angle that his shoulder was resting at. The center of his white shirt was blood soaked, and she knew that his chest cavity hadn’t survived Fallon’s tackle. There was no way he had more than a few minutes.

“I wouldn’t have believed me, either,” she insisted, shrugging off his jacket and draping it over him like a blanket when he started to shiver. In the distance, the disjointed voices seemed to notice them, and people began running towards the field. “Just relax.”

“I’m so - so sorry.”

“Shh.” Her own vision became so blurred with tears that she gave up on looking at him entirely, squeezing her eyes shut and leaning down to press her forehead against his. His skin was freezing to the touch.

He was gone by the time they were approached, and she fought through the screams of shock and exclamations of horror and disgust to answer the repetitive question that everyone had.

What happened? Who did this?

_ Fallon. _

She hadn’t been wrong - time was up.

* * *

The woods behind the elementary school hadn’t changed a bit. 

Kirby hadn’t been in them in years, but like muscle memory, she knew every root and branch, ducking and overstepping with perfect precision, without even looking where she was going. 

Fallon had always known the woods better than Kirby had. Now that their connection had become so strong, that was helpful.

She made her way into the clearing and stopped, glancing around curiously. The leafrollers. They were back, hanging from every single branch in sight, just around eye level. It wasn’t the season for them, though. Why were they out, now, in such huge numbers?

It seemed like a divine sign, so Kirby marched on. 

“I didn’t know if you’d show up.”

Turning around slowly, Kirby watched Fallon appear before her and approach her stiffly. She was hurt.

“Fallon…” She couldn’t keep the broken exhaustion out of her voice. She’d thought about what she’d do to her when she finally got her hands on her, but now she just felt tired. 

Fallon softened noticeably, and reached for her, and it was only then that Kirby noticed the additional scrapes and cuts that she must have gotten during her fight with Liam. It felt wrong to worry about her minor injuries when Liam had paid for losing the fight with his life, but it was reflexive.

“Come here.” 

Fallon eyed her warily for a moment before stumbling a few steps closer and into her arms. She felt so frail, again. For a moment, Kirby felt guilty for not letting her get her strength up, before remembering exactly how she did it. 

“Fallon, you can’t go back there.”

“I know we can’t,” Fallon mumbled, and her change of wording didn’t slip past Kirby unnoticed.

“You could run,” Kirby suggested. “I… everyone knows it was you. But maybe if you go now, you could make it.”

“Don’t make me leave you,” Fallon sighed, pulling back to look at her. “Let's just stay here.”

“Where, in the forest?” Kirby asked, glancing around.

“Yeah. We always wanted to when we were little, anyway.”

“Yeah, the important thing being  _ when we were little.  _ Fallon, they’re going to take you away, and lock you up, or kill you, or  _ something _ . I need you to leave before anything happens to you.”

“Do you forgive me?” Fallon asked, very suddenly, her tone sharp and serious.

“I - what?”

“Do you. Forgive me.” 

Kirby thought of Evan - and Trixie being left behind, then Michael, and his family, and Liam, and then Liam himself. Her eyes burned and she dropped Fallon’s gaze to wring her hands together.

“Please, Kirby? I’m sorry.”

“I can’t.”

“But I  _ said  _ that I’m sorry _ .” _

“I know you did, Fallon.” Kirby’s voice was sharp, almost cutting into the end of the other girl’s sentence. “But that isn’t… that isn’t enough, this time.”

Fallon’s features hardened, and she pushed herself off of Kirby as she stepped away.

“ _ Fine. _ Fuck you. You’d only slow me down, anyway.” 

She reached up and tore her necklace off, flinging her half of the  _ Best Friends _ pendant at Kirby’s feet.

“Will you tell me why you did it?”

Fallon scoffed.

“You think you deserve that? No. I’m done confiding in you. I am so  _ sick  _ of putting more into this friendship than you do.”

“That isn’t fair.  _ Or _ true,” Kirby insisted. “I would have done  _ anything _ for you.”

“Yeah?” Fallon taunted, pacing back and forth. “Is that because you’re that good of a friend or because you have some weird unresolved feelings for me?  _ Still _ ?”

“It’s because I love you. You know that. You  _ have _ to know that.”

Fallon shook her head, setting her jaw and staring up at the sky through the clearing instead of immediately answering. When she looked at Kirby again, her eyes were misty.

“Please tell me why, Fallon.”

“I already told you,” Fallon hissed defensively. “I was hungry.”

“But  _ why _ Evan? Why Culhane? I don’t get the common thread.”

Fallon stared at her for a moment and everything clicked into place. Evan’s scent on her, Culhane taking up space in her social calendar. 

But it still didn’t explain the freshman from the high school by the lake.

“What about the MGH kid?”

Fallon shuffled her feet into the dirt of the forest floor, coming a little closer.

“Why don’t you believe me?”

“Because I know you,” Kirby reminded her. “And I know you don’t do anything without thinking it over.”

“If I tell you, are you going to tell me why you ran out of my house like it was on fire when I tried to kiss you? Even though I  _ know _ you’ve been thinking about it since, like, forever?”

It was a desperate bargain, which only told Kirby how badly Fallon really wanted to know. She hadn’t realized how much it had been eating away at her. Fallon was very much the ‘no, you tell ME first’ type. To offer information without any guarantee of a return on her investment was the move of a distinct but rare ‘backed into a corner with no where to go’ Fallon.

“Okay,” Kirby agreed.

“The reroute to get to school made me cut our morning phone calls short. When they thought their mystery serial killer had moved north, they let up. Your turn.”

She was trying not to give Kirby a chance to properly process what her explanation meant, but she did anyway. It was love. It was  _ obvious _ love, wrapped up in a fucked up, over the top self serving gesture.

“I was scared about what kissing you meant, and I knew that you were trying to mess with me.”

Fallon’s face fell a little.

“I wasn’t… messing with you. Jesus, Kirby, what kind of monster do you think I am?”

Kirby thought of the books still waiting for her at home on her bed.  _ Demonology _ .  _ The Satanic Occult. _ Virgin sacrifices and succubi, the way that Fallon’s personality was still right there. Really, only her diet had changed.

“I don’t want to leave without you,” Fallon repeated. “But I will if you make me. You know it’ll just be the same thing in the next town, though.”

“I really don’t think you’re trying hard enough to get a handle on this thing,” Kirby insisted. She thumbed the knife in her back pocket softly, wondering if Fallon already knew it was there.

“You have no idea what I’ve been through. What I’m  _ still _ going through. Right this minute.”

“Maybe not,” Kirby hummed. “But I can guess. I know you’re tired, and you probably just want to go home. And you’re hungry, and rethinking not killing me.”

Fallon’s eyes flashed and she came closer still - close enough that Kirby could feel her cold breath on her ear when she leaned in.

“Why would I do a thing like that?”

“Because you know how this ends.”

Fallon took her by the waist and for a moment she expected the other girl to throw her to the ground like she had with Liam. Instead, she kissed her. Just once, at first, and then over and over as she pulled her closer still.

Her arms wrapped around her like she was holding on for dear life, and then slid down before stopping abruptly. Fallon pulled back, hard, and ripped the knife from Kirby’s pocket. Scrambling to grab it back despite the haziness in her mind, Kirby wrestled the blade back and glared at the other girl.

“What the fuck, Kirby! Were you going to _stab_ _me_? You know how I feel about being stabbed!”

“No!” Kirby insisted. “I didn’t - I didn’t want to have to use it.”

“Give it to me.”

“No.”

“Kirby, give me the knife.” The brunette lunged forward and grabbed for it, letting out a yelp of pain as the blade slid cleanly across her palm, leaving an angry red slit in its place before she began leaking blood onto the forest floor. 

She gave pause for only a moment to observe it before lunging at Kirby again and knocking her to the ground.

“I told you I’m indestructible!” Fallon hissed, having managed to pin Kirby’s arms and beginning to try to pry the knife away.

“We both saw you in the field!” Kirby snapped back. “You might be able to heal eventually, but you’ll bleed out before you do.”

“So you were going to kill me? You  _ are _ a liar.” Fallon gasped as Kirby freed one hand, gripping the knife more evenly now. “You didn’t deserve Liam, did you?”

She wasn’t sure what came over her. Maybe it was like those stories on the news of middle aged mothers lifting entire cars off of their children in moments of high adrenaline, or maybe Fallon really was just getting tired and couldn’t hold Kirby off for any longer. She kicked herself free and pushed Fallon back, raising the blade up angrily.

The girl underneath her barely resembled her best friend, anymore. She was sickly looking, with dark circles and a dead sort of look in her eyes that didn’t belong on any living creature. 

True to her word, and wanting it to be quick, Kirby pushed Fallon’s head back with one hand and slid the blade cleanly across her throat, following the line of an indent from where her abandoned half of their matching necklaces had been.

She held her still but had to look away to sob into her own arm, dropping the knife into the grass as Fallon’s hands on her arms slackened and then fell limply at her sides.

She had told Fallon that she’d never make a clean getaway, and now she knew that she wouldn’t either. Her time was limited, and she’d have to run quickly. 

She felt empty. There was nothing left for her, anyway. Liam was gone. The hunger suddenly subsided and she knew that Fallon was completely gone, too. Climbing off of her and refusing to look back, Kirby brushed herself off and made her way towards the other side of the clearing to head back into the trees and find her way out of the forest.

With her limited time left, she’d at least make sure that she did right by everyone. Evan, Culhane, Liam, Fallon, even the stranger from the other high school. 

She had visits to pay and people to tell the news to - starting with  _ Redsnake _ , and Nick.


End file.
